Flashback - Episode 6. Outraged customer sees red, shock horror.
The radio alarm clock burst into life at 8:00am the next morning with an untuned barrage of static. I was refreshed and relaxed and had finished my prescribed course of antibiotics. Fortunately my other medication seemed to be keeping the agoraphobia in check and I was not feeling the slightest bit of anxiety or, at the other end of the scale, any manic urges to run screaming through the streets to the local airport and demand immediate emergency air evacuation back to the UK under heavy sedation.
I was aware, however, that Las Vegas was within a fast half day ride of Los Angeles, and my American surrogate home, and thus the feelings of isolation that normally pushed me into the fear zone were unlikely here. The first true test of my new found freedom from phobia would come in the middle of the night, somewhere up in the Rockies in a one horse town, hundreds of miles from an airport and days away from LA. This thought was a constant, if unwelcome, companion that hovered in the background and spoke when I least needed to hear it.
My departure from Los Angeles had been a bit of a false start, with my journey stumbling in the opening few yards, hitting the first hurdle and going down hard. I was now back in the starting blocks and under starters orders and, barring being shot by the starting gun, would be on the road again in a matter hours.
But first the essentials, the three S's - shit, shower, shave, or in this case, as I had adopted the outlaw biker stubble look and wasn't shaving, the two S's. I was in a hurry and had allocated five minutes to these two S's.
Upon entering the bathroom I was immediately aware that there was something hideously wrong. To my knowledge there was, at that particular point in time, only one person in the bathroom. So, by a process of elimination, or lack thereof, the bright red skinned individual in the mirror could only have been me.
This was not red in a "couple of minutes in the sun" kind or way. This was red in a "fell asleep in the sun for ten hours without sun cream" kind of way. Only this wasn't sunburn, because, apart from the fact I'd been in bed for most of the past three days, the only bits I'd exposed to the sun since leaving LA, were my forearms, my face and my neck. This was an all over affair and featured slightly bumpy skin like goosebumps, that could only have been one thing - an allergic reaction.
But to what? I hadn't been swimming. I'd been using the same soap for a few days and and hadn't noticed anything before now. And as far as I was aware I didn't have any food allergies.
I turned to inspect my back which was as red as the front, however, at the top the redness became a little streaky, like fingers of red running down from the nape of my neck. The kind of streaky red, finger-like marks you would expect to get if you had had a massage and your skin had reacted to the massage oil.
This explained the virtually 100% coverage and the fact that I was red in places where the sun normally didn't normally get a look in.
Although shocking to behold, I consoled myself that at least it wasn't life threatening, it wouldn't necessitate hospitalisation and the worst that could happen would be that I would require another regimen of some new form of medication. I would perhaps also have to avoid aggravating it by exposing it to the sun, which, with the aid of a long sleeved t-shirt and my normal riding jeans, would not be a problem on the bike. I looked a little weird though, but then who didn't in this town. I now had my very own unique caste colour that set me aside from the orange of Siegfried and Roy and other entertainment hoy poloy. I was red and therefore very important...or perhaps just another sunburnt British tourist.
I made my way down to to the check-out counter in reception only to find a tiny percentage of the hotel's 2,400 guest in the queue in front of me - that would be a few hundred then. I stood in line for about 10 minutes, during which time the queue moved about five feet.
It's at times like this that you really appreciate the kind of bad service we get in Britain. Although annoying in the extreme, at least your standard poe faced, monosyllabic British receptionist doesn't waste time with pleasantries. I could lip read the receptionist at the front of my queue going through the standard, "how are you today", "did you enjoy your stay", "was there anything wrong with your room", "is there anything else I can help you with today", "thank you for staying at the New York, New York, I hope you come again", "Have a nice day", "you are welcome", "you are welcome", "you are very welcome". I was in two minds as to whether to call the head of customer relations on the white house phone, and suggest that during times of peak demand at the front desk, they employ the "British Check-out Standard", that being, "Hello...........Goodbye".
This would save them at least two to three minutes per guest, which, in a queue for 20 people, would speed things up for the poor bastard at the back by at least 40 minutes - a saving that would do more for customer relations than their existing long winded, rhetorical check out procedure.
I couldn't wait any longer - the road was calling to me. Thinking around the problem, I decided to head back up to my room and use the automated check-out on the interactive TV system.
Ten minutes later I was sitting in my room and had negotiated my way through the screen prompts to the penultimate page of the billing system. Two more button pushes and the bill would be charged to my credit card and I would be free. I pushed the button once to bring up the grand total...and I was immediately aware that there was something hideously wrong.
The total read $1,268. It's easy to look at bills like this and see them in £ Sterling, in which case they are going to look expensive. But I had converted this particular bill the instant it came up on the screen, and it was hideously wrong in Sterling as well as Dollars. It equated to approximately £190 per night. By my reckoning it should have been nearer £90 per night, or a four night total in Dollars of $640, plus a bit of tax.
The bill was nearly double what I had expected and I felt like a bit of good old fashioned English agro coming on.
There is nothing quite like standing in front of a huge queue of impatient people and in a loud and deeply sarcastic manner demanding to see the owner, or at the very least the general manager, of an errant establishment. An outright refusal to lower your voice and a proclamation that you are not moving from the spot until your demands have been met, are an essential part of this experience. You do, however, have to be sure of your facts, because a climb-down in front of a huge queue of impatient people is a deeply humiliating experience...or so I am told.
I had checked in on a rate of $139 per night for two nights. I had extended this rate for a third night and then on my fourth, had downgraded to a smaller and thus cheaper room. These were the facts, of which I was sure, but they clearly didn't add up.
Unfortunately, a command performance of "Outraged customer at the front of the queue", means actually standing and waiting in the queue to get to the front, and as I had discovered earlier, this meant a long wait - but now it would be worth it.
It was half an hour before I eventually reached the front of the queue and was confronted by the receptionist who was to be my co-star. She was pretty, as everyone who worked front-of-house in Vegas appeared to be, and her name was Karyne, which I took to mean Karen.
"Good morning Karyne"
"Good morning Sir. How are you this morning?"
"Very well thank you Karyne"
"And how can I help you?"
"I would like to check out please"
"OK, and your room number?"
"1829"
"Thank you"
I avoided the chance to turn the tables and say "You're welcome", just in case she responded with a "thank you", and we ended up stuck for hours in some endless loop.
"Now the problem is Karyne, I had a look at the bill on the TV system in the room, and it's clearly wrong"
"OK, let me have a look at that Sir"
After a minute or so a computer printer wirred into life next to her.
"Here is your bill Mr Keen, and it appears to be fine"
She placed the bill on the counter so I could check it myself.
"Could you take a look and tell me where you think it's incorrect"
I looked down at the bill and started to go through it.
Ah, OK, yes there were a couple of meals I'd forgotten. And sure, I'd made a couple of long distance phone calls, but still, double what I was expecting? The two elements that stuck out immediately were the phone calls and the last night of accommodation.
"Karyne, could you check the phone log for me and give me the rate per minute?
"Let me take a look at that for you Sir."
I had made about three calls on the night of my hospitalization, to friends who I thought might be able to help with a quick long distance diagnosis of my condition. None could, but it had been reassuring to know that someone back in the UK was aware of my last known position and would be able to track down my remains and personal effects in the event that things turned really ugly and all contact was lost.
"Here we are Sir. You made three calls with a combined total of 47 minutes, which at $5 per minute totals $235.
47 minutes was probably about right and it was pointless arguing that $5 per minute was excessive, because humans are born with the knowledge that hotel phone rates are excessive, printed in their DNA. It's a fact that no one can deny knowledge of.
"Yup, that looks fine. What I really wanted to look at is this last night room charge. I was in a room at $139 per night and down graded to a smaller room to save money. It says here that my last night was $369. That's not really a downgrade is it Karyne. Do you think I could speak to the manager."
I had her now. There was no escaping my simple and obvious logic."
"Let me take a look at that for you Sir."
She was altogether too cool for my liking. There was not a hint that my questions were creating even the slightest chink in her shiny, smily suit of confidence armor. I was the one getting nervous and I was wondering whether my request for the manager had been perhaps a little premature. The "could I speak to the manager" statement was normally deployed when the opponent was reeling in the face of my clinical dissection and unarguable evaluation of the problem, and was looking to throw in the towel. At this point the option to defer to a higher power is an easy out, and is normally seized upon. In reality, managers and heads of department are rarely available, and if they are, are more likely to send the hapless receptionist back to face the customer with an instruction to use their initiative and discretion to sort the problem out - this generally results in a discount or removal of the disputed charge. I had used this knowledge on countless occasions and had received discounts on everything from floaters in the loo, through to excessively noisy mattresses.
However, Karyne had not marched off to see a superior, she was deeply engrossed in her computer terminal. Eventually she turned to me and placed a pen on the bill next to the $369 charge.
"Unfortunately your fourth night was a Saturday night and even though you downgraded, due to the demand for rooms last night, the rate for your new room was as shown here, $369. She smiled.
"What do you mean due to demand. What has demand got to do with anything? My voice was now beginning to boom.
"None of our rooms have set rates. The rate depends on the night of the week and how busy we are. We were extremely busy last night because of the big fight at the MGM Grand, and what with it being a Saturday as well, your room was $369.
"Well it was nice of your reservations people to tell me that when I spoke to them" I was half turned to the people in the queue behind me and my volume was set to 11. " And another thing, the only reason I was here for a fourth night, and a third night come to think of it, was because I got food poisoning from your Italian restaurant here in the hotel and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance in the middle of the night. I was on a drip for 5 hours you know and was projectile vomiting all over the place".
Karyne was looking nervous now as were the people in the queue behind me. Some even had the foot-in-dog-shit look that I had seen on the faces of my ambulance crew. Were they shocked by my bright red face and neck or by my story? I had no idea.
This time Karyne abandoned her computer terminal and headed for the back office. Success!
Minutes later she appeared again, this time with the composed look of someone with a solution.
"Mr Keen. I have been authorised to reduce the rate on your final night and also, as a gesture of goodwill, remove all phone charges. Would that be OK with you?"
"That would be very nice, Thank you Karyne"
"You're Welcome"
Order restored, and my voice down to its normal level of around 5, I signed the credit card receipt and said my farewell.
Thank you Karyne. I'm sorry if I was a little heated there, it's been a harrowing few days"
"I understand entirely Sir." And then the preprogramming kicked in. "I hope you enjoyed your stay here at New York New York and have a pleasant journey home."
It was incredible how my earlier revelations had failed to engender a change to Karyne's farewell. I wondered whether, if the hotel was ripped apart in an earthquake, Karyne would be found stumbling around in the rubble issuing fond corporate farewells to the surviving guests, like some dutiful Stepford wife. Bizare...but then this was Vegas.
"Thank you"
"You're welcome"
"Thank you"
"You're welcome"
I gave up and made my way across the casino floor at speed, just in case Karyne blew a fuse and came after my like a pretty version of Yul Brynner in a Vegas version of Westworld.
[@ 10:07 PM GMT]
Flashback - Episode 5. To strip or not to strip, that is the question.
It didn't really dawn on me until I opened the Yellow Pages, just how difficult it was going to be to find somewhere to have a massage...just a massage! Most of the massage parlor ads had that look that tells you that the masseurs are trained to please, rather than trained at any local seat of learning.
I was looking for ads that listed a wide range of different types of massage techniques and therapies, mentioned a few professional qualifications and associations and were devoid of images of scantily clad employees.
There were perilously few that met my critera and those that did weren't open at the weekend...and this was the weekend. Plan b was to select the largest place I could find - on the basis that large equals legit' - and hope that they knew a thing or two about pain relief rather than just relief.
On the way into Las Vegas there are a series of roadside posters, huge roadside posters each standing on big tubular steel legs and each with a solar panel perched on top like some malevolent bird of prey. They start about a 100 miles out and increase in frequency the closer you get to the city. By the time you hit the outskirts of Vegas they are a few hundred yards apart and form part of a Tron'esque landscape where, controlled by the approaching user, the Yellow Pages are brought up on LED screens lining the digital pathway.
This is very effective advertising and for one simple reason; there is nothing else to look at. The road to Vegas runs flat and straight across orange desert scrub. It turns occasionally and in places it rises and falls but almost imperceptibly - and that's it. These things stand out a mile, or three, and their messages become etched on your interest starved and overheated mind extremely easily.
And on one of the posters I had passed on my ride into the city, had been an ad for a health and massage spa. A spa advertising on these roadside billboards, alongside the major hotels and shows, must be big, and of course thus legitimate, and what's more they were open weekends.
Having found their number in the Yellow Pages under "Health & Beauty - Spas", yet another encouraging sign, I made an appointment for later on that afternoon. If I could get my back sorted I would be in perfect shape to leave the next morning and make some serious inroads into Utah.
The rest of the day was spent slouching around the casino and reading the local newspapers in one of the countless outdoor indoor cafes that surround the main casino floor. That's another feature of these heavily themed hotel casinos, such as New York New York, the outdoor indoor city.
If you're going to create a hotel in the image of a city then you have to offer what a city would offer; an urban landscape with streets full of shops, restaurants, bars and cafes. It's perfect really. It provides an air conditioned shopping environment away from the searing 100F+ temperatures outside, it keeps guests occupied whilst not gambling, and most importantly, it ensures guests spend their leisure dollars inside the hotel. It's pure Disney, but it works.
On the downside, it means you go on holiday and never see the sun, you spend 24 hours-a-day breathing in reconditioned air that others have breathed out and you become oblivious to the passing of time - the sun never rises nor sets in a casino and you will never ever see a clock. I was even told that oxygen is pumped into casinos in the early hours of the morning to stop guests getting tired and going to bed. This was cutting edge consumer manipulation on a grand and impressive scale and I was glad that I had spotted it early.
As my 5 O'clock appointment neared I made my way out to the multi story car park to collect my bike. It was hot, far too hot. You could feel the intensity of the sun the second you walked out of the shade and the heat from the black asphalt underfoot worked its way through your shoes the moment you stood still. After two days in a cool air-conditioned environment I had forgotten all about the oven outside and had made the mistake of wearing long sleeves instead of short and jeans instead of shorts. Fortunately the trip to the spa looked short and at least this clothing cover would save me from the traditional English sun burn.
The spa was on one of those roads that goes on for miles and has building numbers running into five figures. This should make finding places easy, however, on this particular road virtually none of the buildings had numbers. These huge roads are undoubtedly good for finding your way around, however, if you are unused to them, you can find yourself on a road you recognise but miles from your intended destination and in a neighbourhood you have never heard of.
Take Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles for example. This is a hellishly long road that runs for over 20 miles from Downtown, west to the Pacific Ocean near Malibu - not that this is the best or quickest way to get to Malibu from Downtown, far from it. These kinds of roads are a good example of the adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and the long road novice would do well to avoid them. The problem is they have this insidious way of exploiting your lack of knowledge of any other easier, less congested routes, and force you to endure their every stoplight strewn, roadwork infested, overcrowded mile.
Fortunately, on this occasion I had done a little on-line homework and was armed with exact longitude and latitude references...plus the name of the nearest cross street. The road ran at right angles to the strip, west over i15 and towards the low rise sprawl I had seen from my first bedroom window. This was the Vegas back-lot where the behind-the-scenes people and the bit actors lived. This was the kind of street you don't expect to find in a parallel universe like Vegas, it was far too normal. This kind of street was the equivalent of seeing Mickey Mouse in the staff canteen at Disney World, kicking back and smoking a well earned cigarette - it spoilt the illusion.
And what was the point of supermarkets when there were more restaurants than there were people. What was the point of tool hire shops when the only tools you needed were an electric toothbrush and a razor. And what possible need could there be in Vegas for plumbing supplies?
As I rode, the neighborhood changed. High rent gave way to low and the pristine black top asphalt road that looked so smart on the Strip, gave way to an old, pockmarked, faded version that bore the roadwork scars of time. This was not exactly the neighborhood where you are likely to find a smart health spa, but then this was Vegas and anything was possible in Vegas.
Finally, I found myself approaching the cross street I was searching for and the parcel of land where the on-line map had placed a neat red star. However, where the modest but stylish spa should have stood was a parade of shops, and in the middle of the parade was a, err, massage parlor...with, ummm, blacked out windows.
Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't the thought of being pampered my wide eyed, nubile Thai girls that was the problem, it was the sound knowledge that if they were, the chances of me leaving this place with my back worse than it was when I arrived, were high.
Added to this concern was the slightly unsettling memory of the last full body massage I had received at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. It was a tense affair by virtue of the shirtless, unusually hairy and extraordinarily tall indian gentleman who had delivered it.
Putting my clearly ridiculous concerns aside, I parked the bike in a bay in front of the shop / parlor and dismounted. The parade, or to be more precise mini mall, as any small cluster of shops with a 40 foot lollipop-like roadside sign is called, comprised four shops. Besides the parlor there was a nail bar, a computer repair shop stacked full of obsolete computers that presumably owners had failed to collect once they had worked out it was cheaper to buy a new one, and a unit that had been vacant for years, which, from a quick glance around the neighborhood, was a local disease that showed no signs of being cured.
The sign above the door read "New Siam - Massage Acupressure Therapies". The first of these two techniques I understood, but the third was a little ambiguous and covered an enormous cast of possibilities. This last one was clearly code for more prurient treatments and was presumably only fully understood by regular, hardened massage parlor aficionados.
The reception area was about the size of a family estate car and contained three office style chairs a small rickety bamboo coffee table covered in cheap Las Vegas accommodation guides, and an extremely dusty plastic Ficus plant which had at some stage been broken and subsequently repaired with a splint made of two wooden rulers. On the walls were a couple of old framed photographs of the Strip and a fire certificate from the local Fire Department.
No reception desk complete with smiling receptionist, No restful, tinkling music with whale sound and crashing waves. No glossy health and beauty magazines or ornamental water feature. This was "cheap" rather than "chic" minimalism but it worked for them if they could afford to advertise with the big boys along i15. In reality all of that fancy stuff was no more than dressing really and although it gave the impression of quality and professionalism, in reality it did little more than to push up the charges...or fees as they would say.
As long as the massage was good then the rest was of little consequence. In many respects it is better to go to a basic massage parlor because there, a poor massage will meet your expectations and a good one will exceed them. At a fancy spa, a good massage will meet your expectations but a poor one will fall below them. Places like this are also great for small talk. People are interested to hear when you go to a cheap place and received great service, but their eyes will glaze over when you mention you went to an expensive place and received great service - which is why people always have to say it was "ammmazing". On balance I was at the right place; I would leave either happy or very happy.
A loud electronic "bing bong" had announced my arrival but no one had appeared. I sat alone in the tiny reception area, now quite glad that the windows were blacked out. After a couple of minutes a small girl, who I assumed to be Thai, popped her head out from in between the two sheets which acted as a doorway to the rear of the shop / parlor / salon / spa.
"Anwoo?"
"Hello"
"Come, come"
An arm appeared and waved for me to follow.
"yo come he befo?"
"Sorry?"
"Befo, yo come he?"
"Oh, no. Me no come he befo"
"Ohhh, OK"
We were walking down a dimly lit corridor between two rows of cubicles where the only light appeared to be coming from the windows at the front of the shop / parlor / spa. The cubicle partitions stopped a few feet short of the ceiling allowing light to pass down the room, and although private, each cubicle afforded about the same level of privacy as a public toilet, where muted straining and awkward half coughs are easily heard. The only sound here, however, was an almost imperceptible occasional low male murmur punctuated my a little Thai titter, or a brief Thai exchange between masseuses.
Although cool and clearly air conditioned, the perfumed oil scented air was at the same time a little dank, and not altogether unlike a cool but humid evening in a tropical climate...such as Thailand.
Each cubicle had a sheet suspended across it's narrow doorway and there was no visible means of telling who or what was within. Half way down the corridor my guide pulled back a sheet door and waved for me to enter, "come, come". I ducked down to enter under her outstretched arm that held the sheet aside. The inside of the cubicle was barren apart from a towel covered table and a stool with the tool of the trade - a large plastic bottle of oil. Why I expected to find more I'm not sure, This was after all, all that was required.
Grinning broadly, my guide, who was clearly also my masseur, bade me prepare.
"off, off" she said with a mock gesture of removing a top over her head.
"I stripped down to my boxer shorts and stood there with my arms extended as if to say " is this OK". Clearly it was not.
"off, off" she repeated - this time with a slightly wider grin - as she handed me a towel.
I slid my boxers down with one hand a placed the still folder towel over my groin with the other. Then, without further direction, slid onto the bench front side up, leaving the folded towel now perched on top of my groin. My masseur moved to the side of the bench, unfolded the towel and draped it over me.
"Turn ower plis"
I turned as she held the towel and rearranged it over my backside.
"You hut anwere?"
"I, sorry?"
"You hut anwere? She touched the lower, middle and top of my back. "Here, here, here?"
"Ah, no, just stiff and it aches a lot".
"OK."
"And I'm very sensitive"
"Senstwiv?"
Yes, sensitive, ticklish"
"Ah, ticwish" she tittered.
My sensitivity, or ticwishness, was the reason why I so rarely had massages. If not fully relaxed a massage will have the opposite effect to that intended, and I will end up solid as a rock. Fortunately, after a few days in bed and with the prospect of my journey ahead, I was relaxed and desensitised.
The massage began with a liberal squirt of oil and a few long hard movements up and down my back. It then proceeded to focus in turn on the major muscle groups, neck, head, etc, etc.
Up to this point proceedings had taken place in near silence, apart from the occasional grunt as my masseur found and applied ferocious pressure to a knotted muscle. At some stage background music was turned on and the silence was filled by a distant Thai ensemble plinking and plonking their way through some traditional Thai elevator music.
Feeling that I should know a little more about my very pretty Thai torturer, I struck up conversation.
"What Is Your Name" I said, in that halting over enunciated way you do when talking to someone who speaks a different language.
"Sunee"
"OK. And how long have you been in Las Vegas, Sunee"
"for year"
"Four years, OK. Do you like it here?
"It OK."
"It's very hot here"
"hmm, vewy hot"
"Where did you come from originally?"
"Thailand"
"It's very hot there too."
"yea, vewy hot"
"And humid"
"wha?"
"err, humid...moist...damp, err hot and wet...wet heat..."
"oh, yea, OK"...titter.
It's strange how when faced by a perceived language barrier, conversation tends to stick to inane things. For all I knew, Sunee could have had a degree in English language from the University of Bangkok and here was I talking to her like a child. I'm sure from Sunee's point of view all men, when naked and confronted by a pretty girl, start talking total gibberish for totally different reasons...which they probably do.
Perhaps to stop my scintillating conversation or perhaps because she had finish my back, I'm not sure, I was instructed to turn over. My hands and arms were first to suffer Sunee's powerful attention. I was amazed at how someone so petite could have such a vice like grip and also how someone who looked so gentle could exact such pain. Years of practice I guess - at least that's what some of my married friends say of their wives.
Next came head, face, chest and then a jump to my feet. Now these are particularly sensitive so I warned her off and she moved to my ankles, calves and thighs. That was about it and it had been a great massage. Based on my original scale, Sunee had exceeded my expectations and thus I was very happy.
"Thank you Sunee, that was great."
"you a wewcome Anwoo"
"It's a shame I have to leave tomorrow, otherwise I would come back for another"
"ow, stay, stay. Com back" she tittered.
And that's when she popped the question.
"woud you wike a happy ending?"
"Yes, why not"
And it was then that I discovered what "happy ending" meant in Thai...and most other languages.
I left very, very happy.
[@ 02:47 AM GMT]
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