The View from the Hotel Bathtub

Doesn't that sound like a movie or something? A novel perhaps. At any rate, the people who built our house did really strange things like put the dishwasher on the opposite side of the kitchen from the sink. But the 4 baths are interesting. Actually we have a half bath behind the kitchen that is pretty normal. The bath in the basement is something you would expect - a small shower stall, small sink, and toilet. But the other two baths are something to behold. The one upstairs is hot pink. Yes, the sink, the toilet and the shower. The one on the main floor is the same basic plan, a little smaller, but with an identical shower stall, this time in apple green. There is no tub in the house. No place to soak my toes or take a bubble bath. So whenever we travel I take bubble bath and enjoy the bathtub.

Hotel bathtubs come in three kinds. There are the oldest ones - huge, deep porcelain things. I love them. The mid-age tubs are comfortable, vinyl, and not as deep as the old tubs. They are OK - definitely relaxing. Some of the newest tubs are made for torture. They are tiny with straight up-and-down backs. That means you can't lean back and relax. They are shorter and your knees stick out of the water. Beware the new tubs!

It appears that hotel managers and people who do housecleaning have no idea what can be seen from the tubs in their establishment. It is amazing what you can see from there. You can see under the sink in many rooms. No one ever dusts the U part of the pipes - the trap part. Often the pipes are rusty. Sometimes way back under the vanity are things left by previous inhabitants. Bobby pins are the most common things. Sometimes the broom doesn't appear to reach all the way back. In the hotel where we are currently staying - a Hilton I might add - the back of the toilet has about 5 years of dust on a little ledge back there. I am not so finicky that I can't stay in a room where there is some other person's bobby pin, but some people are. Hotels pride themselves on making everything appear as though you were the very first person in the room. Nice hotels even do little origami things with the Kleenex and toilet paper. May I suggest that hotel managers occasionally sit in the bathtub and look around. They might be surprised!