Having already told you of the last day of Linsday and my little Chicago vacation (in Parts 1 and 2), I will now ditch the reverse-chronological-storytelling style and start at the beginning.

On the first day, God created Dark Chocolate Kit-Kats. He taunted yet-to-be-created humans by labelling the delectable little things as "Limited Edition". My, what a spiteful God. They should be permanent! screamed the yet-to-be-created humans.

Wait... Um. That was the first day of some alternate universe... Anyway, I meant the first day of our vacation. Let's get to that, shall we?

Right. Wednesday. Knowing that we were leaving for our Chicago vacation soon after work, I decided that I really wanted, no, needed a bigger smartMedia card for my digital camera. It came with a 16MB card, and that was starting to "cramp my style", as all the old folks say. I could fit maybe 24 pictures on it. Not good. Certainly not good enough for a vacation. No way. I stopped off at a Best Buy during lunch and upgraded to a brand spanking new 128MB SmartMedia card. Mammoth. Absolute mammoth. Hee. Perfect for the Chicago trip, right? Right. Damn right. Damn damn right. Now I can fit in about 180 high resolution photos on my new card. Rock. I'll take me a ton and a half of photos, I thought to myself in my not-real-voice.

Fast forward to later that evening. After work, Lins and I quickly packed up, ate dinner and headed towards Madison, Wisconsin, where we had pre-booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn. Madison is 4 hours from Mpls and only a 2 hour drive to Chicago, so it seemed like a logical spot to stay, since driving all the way to Chicago was out of the question after a day of work and running around.

We pulled into our hotel parking lot at about 12:30am, and the lone hotel guy was out having a smoke. He quickly threw his half-gone cigarette, turned, trudged inside and stood at his desk, waiting.

Me (jovially): Hey there! Sorry to interrupt your smoke break, man!

Hotel guy: *blank stare*

Then we started the "checking in" process.

Me: Hey -- where's the campus town area?

Hotel guy: That's hard to say. Campus is 12.3 miles long.

Me: Right, but is there, like, a cluster of bars on or near campus where students go to hang out and drink or anything?

Hotel guy: *blank stare* Again. Campus: 12.3 miles long.

Me: Riiight. Um, nevermind, then.

Lindsay was laughing at me. This is what usually happens when I try to make small talk with people. It doesn't go well.

Absolutely humor-less Hotel guy finished checking us in, and off we went to our room, which was all the way across the hotel. We got to our hallway -- and it absolutely reeked. Wait. That's not coming from our room, is it? The closer we got, the more pungent the odor became. We slid in the key, opened the door, and *gack* realized that, yes, hey! It is our room that totally smells like ass! Only not like just one ass, it's more like 300 million mildewy asses on fire with cat pee, sulfur and rotten eggs thrown about the perimeter for good luck. We need to get another room.

So we lumbered back to the front desk, lugging along all our shit, hoping Hotel guy wasn't out smoking again. We'd hate to inconvenience him twice.

Lins: You. Don't make any jokes this time.

Me: I know... I know.

Lins: He thought you were being an asshole!

Me: Really? I meant it as a joke. Like, I know how much that sucks, cause I hate it when my smoke breaks get interrupted! You know, even though I've never had a cigarette in my entire life.

Lins: Yeah. No jokes. Please.

Hotel guy was at his desk still, looking slightly comatose. "Yeah, that room smells really really bad. Like someone was cleaning the carpets and didn't let them dry right. Very mildewy," Lindsay told him. After a couple seconds of trying to comprehend the request for a new room, Humor Rating of Negative 90 man punched at his computer keys and got us a new room. I mean, this guy was really super nice if you asked him one of the 6 questions that he'd been pre-programmed to answer over and over again. If you stray from the "usual hotel guest questions" script, though, he'll be a complete ass to you. Just so you know.

So we lugged all our crap to our new room. *cautionary sniff* No ass or mildew smell -- that's probably a plus. Only... This room had a horribly skanky stain on the ottoman in the corner. Eh. Is it just the ottoman? A quick sweep of the room confirmed that, yes, only the ottoman had a horribly skanky stain on it. Yeah, then we'll just stay here and not touch anything with bare skin, for fear of burning or anthrax or general contamination.

Before we went to bed, I called the front desk for a wakeup call.

Me: Hi. Can we get a 9:45am wake up call, please?

Hotel guy: Absolutely, sir! Nine-Four-Five A-M. Got it in for you! Have a grrreat day tomorrow!

Ass.

Coming up in part 4 of the Chicago Vacation recap, IHOPping, toll running and Ikea shopping! It'll be a slammin good time, y'all!

Thanks for reading,
Eric