BAD VACATION, Part Two

earthBound tomToy

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

The next day, my husband's job interview went just fine. We were turning the tide. I called the airline again. Perhaps they had good news. While the customer service rep had me on the phone, he noticed I was from Ohio.

"I see you're from Columbus, ma'm," he said.

"Yes, that's correct," I responded, thinking this info would help him locate our bags.

"I'm a celebrity of sorts in McConnelsville, Ohio," he claimed.

"Oh, really?" I replied, just to be polite.

He continued: "Why yes, my four-year old daughter was murdered there."

When I hung up, we were no closer to getting our luggage, and I was creeped out by the child murder anecdote.

Our third night was spent in a different hotel: this one at ground zero for South Beach nightlife. How cool! How fun! How freakin' noisy! We had failed to consider there would be a DJ jamming tunes until 4am around the pool, a pool that was separated from us by one thin pane of glass. Even our portable white noise machine was no match.

The next morning, we rose at 7am to head to my job interview. I hoped my under-eye concealer would hide the dark circles. Okay, we'll be fine. We'll re-group.

Uh, no. The only elevator in our historic art deco hotel was sporting a big "out of order" sign and rather boastfully, I might add. Like a teenage boy flaunting his first hickey.

Now that we were facing four flights of hotel stairs, the airplane's one flight seemed, by comparison, like a walk in the park. Or a roll to the tarmac.

I stayed put while my husband descended the stairs to the lobby registration desk. Fifteen minutes later, we were both descending in the elevator. Seems "out of order" really meant "routine elevator maintenance."

I made it to my interview, which went well. That was the watershed moment of the trip; we were certain of it. We passed the remainder of the day pleasantly, shopping, dining and strolling around Miami Beach.

The next day, we changed lodging again. We had planned months ago to stay at three different hotels so we could write about our trip and sell it as a free-lance travel story.

The last hotel was a beautiful art deco property from the outside, but careworn inside. The lobby was dingy and wheelchair access was via a luggage cart ramp on the side. But we were committed to pulling this trip out of the crapper. We even resolved to ignore the room's imperfections: blood on the box springs, smashed insect stains on the wall, threadbare carpet and an unpleasant conglomeration of odors not in our best interest to contemplate.

We stayed out late, enjoying a balmy Miami night, and climbed into bed around 1am.

Just as we'd begun to drift off the sleep, we were startled by a very loud, very shrill emergency klaxon. Whatever could it be? A fire? An emergency? A hurricane four months before the start of the season?

We couldn’t ignore it, and threw on clothes. Down to the lobby we went, along with many other guests. “False alarm,” we were told by the same trio of hotel staffers who were the only ones working. The klaxon stopped.

Annoyed and weary, we returned to our room. Once again, we laid down our heads.

Ten minutes later – you guessed it – the klaxon sounded again.

Now we were very annoyed, weary and worried the elevators might automatically turn off if this was a real fire, even a small one. We pulled on our sweats and went back down to the lobby.

In between answering one call after another, the guy at the front desk looked up and emphatically told our bedraggled group of tired guests, once again, this was a false alarm. But this time the klaxon continued.

What to do, what to do? We decided that fate was telling us to get the hell out of Dodge, so my husband when back upstairs to pack our things. I stayed in the lobby, where I watched a hotel staffer run to the hotel’s front entrance just as Miami Beach Fire/Rescue arrived.

“It’s a false alarm,” cried the staffer, using his body to try to block fire service personnel from entering the hotel. He did not succeed.

Soon we made our escape, then spent the night sleeping in the airport and caught a plane home the next morning.

Some folks would forget such misery after returning home, or would simply re-tell the story for laughs at parties. We are not such people.

Over the next week, my husband and I filed complaints about the hotel from hell to every regulatory agency we could think of, including the Miami Beach Building, Code Compliance and Fire departments.

We thought this would probably take us to the point of closure. Alas, no. The owner of the hotel with the non-stop fire klaxon called and left a lovely message on our home answering machine. In a decidedly threatening tone, he told us that he knew we’d filed the complaints and that we better “watch our backs.” After hearing his message, we filed a complaint with our local police. We never heard from him again.

As for our bags, they were finally located by the airline one month to the day after we’d filed the lost luggage report. Fed Ex delivered them completely intact, everything inside just as we’d packed it. No explanation.