The whirlwind tour is taking a quick break this morning.  Tech Guy Griff is sacked out in the other room, sleeping the sleep of the just.  Just plain tuckered out, that is.  Some people can’t keep up with the pace…

That’s really unfair, and if you knew me well you’d be laughing.  I’m useless without about eight and a half hours of sleep.  No clue why I’m awake right now; I shouldn’t be.  Long day ahead, even though we’re skipping breakfast with Weld.  (Already seen him; already impressed.  The two hours on the road are too valuable to spend on this.)

So it’s time to go down and shovel in the rubber eggs and microwaved sausage that passes for breakfast in this God-forsaken place.  Don’t get me wrong; as a hotel it’s fine.  But the breakfast they could use in Guantanamo to torture the prisoners.  The eggs would serve either as bludgeoning weapons or edible pain induction either one, and they’re probably within the Geneva Convention rules.  Soldiers ate very poor stuff when those were written.  They’d laugh at my complaining.  No maggots and it’s not actually green — skillful use of Lysol is my guess.

But heck with it, I’m griping anyway:  We’re paying an exorbitant rate for this room, and the breakfast should be something more than rubber eggs and that same damn bagel as yesterday and the day before and the day before that which I eventually gave up and took even though I hate whole wheat bagels just so I wouldn’t have to keep staring at the damn thing day after day after day, and this cream cheese is actually rancid?!  What’s wrong with these people?  Nobody ever talked to them about refrigeration?!

AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!   I hate Massachusetts so much!!!

Did I mention the hotel coffee?  The French have a term for it:  “Jus de souchettes”.  Jus is juice; souchettes is socks.  I think you can see where this is going.  So instead, it’s tea.  Let me tell you about the hotel tea:  It’s something called “New England Tea”, which both looks and tastes exactly like Red Man chewing tobacco.  My grandfather used to chew that.  He’d keep an old milk jug to spit in.  The tea looks and smells like the jug and the flavor is indescribable.

Fortunately, Day 2 I thought to bring my own damn tea bag.

Day 3, I used bottled water and boiled it in my room.  I now have my own mug, which holds more than a thimbleful at a time.

Why Massachusetts, you ask?  Because it’s primary season in New Hampshire, and there’s not a single hotel room to be had for love or money.  When there were rooms, the Fairfield Inn was charging $438 a night — no exaggeration.  But just over the state line is a huge collection of hotels with only slightly exorbitant rates, and none of the politicians seem to have noticed these things called Interstate Highways which happen to run in packs here, right outside the hotel door.  We’re 40 minutes from Manchester on a good day.

Only trouble is, you can’t drink the water and really shouldn’t breathe the air.  But at least the eggs bounce.

Oh God I don’t want to go downstairs and face breakfast.  I hate this place.  Screw it; I’m procrastinating.  Which is why I’m writing about this, because if I’m going to suffer you can too.  I’m here on your behalf after all.

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Update:  While writing this, a reader saw a partial description of breakfast and took pity on us. Right at this moment I’m deserving of pity; I’ll take it and be grateful.  We’re going to Cracker Barrel!  I love you all!

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