I’m a frequent hotel customer and have paid my time in hospitality and retail. Please allow me to entertain you with the tale of how a FDA made very unreasonable demands of my legless husband at midnight (literally, he is a bilateral above knee amputee). This will be long, because I want to do the whole situation justice. TL;DR at the bottom.
So this past summer, husband, four-year-old daughter, and I had driven from Alabama to Wyoming to pick up some taxidermy he had relieved of life the previous winter (yes, he hunts, but only things we can eat). And drove back. We had to rent a small U-haul trailer the elk mount was so big. We go from The CO/WY border down into Denver and decide to spend two nights there. I had made the reservation through the Warriott website (as we learned early in disability that making a handicap-room reservation though a host site is a terrible, horrible no-good idea and we thus stay loyal to Warriott). No surprises for us at check-in: we get our roll-in shower, people are nice. However, this is downtown Denver. Parking is at a premium. Husband asks how he can park the truck and trailer so as not to inconvenience other guests (and have the FDAs hear about it). We are told that it is okay to park in the parking deck across three spots. He drives to the top and does so. There are still spots available, and he figures he is out-of-the-way enough to not be a dick.
It had been a long-ass day of driving after we’d gotten a flat tire in the Deliverance area of Wyoming, nearly died without any cell service, address, or access to reasonable people (btw, never going back to that part of WY. Ever). So, we get unwound, eat snacks for dinner, and husband and kid go to bed. I go outside with a serious glass of wine and find someone to talk to. All is well.
Close to midnight, husband rings me and tells me I have to return to the room RIGHT NOW. I get back and get all wtf because he’s getting dressed. I am going to tell you fine folks exactly what had transpired, and I promise no hyperbole. This is for real:
“Yeah, so, the front desk lady came and pounded on the door. No call. She tells me that parking is limited and I have to move the truck and trailer because her Diamond customers are complaining. Please don’t go do that thing you do to people like this, I’ll just disconnect the trailer and turn it around so the trailer is one spot and the truck is in another.”
Y’all. My legless ass husband, who takes serious meds sometimes just to be alive and not in pain, is really going to roll out to a downtown parking deck and do this BY HIMSELF (I am very, very small and have my own joint-health issues and there is literally nothing I can do better than him when it came to the trailer). Having developed a lovely anxiety disorder from that time he got blown up and almost died in war and then we lived in a hospital for a year, my head goes straight to all the things that could go wrong with this. He is defeated. He is tired. And I am FUCKING PISSED. I figure he’s gonna get smashed between the truck and trailer and die.
So, I go out there. There is no way in hell I am not going out there to talk to this woman. And I do. I’m not yelling or cussing because I know that’s not helpful. I’m pissed, though. We go back and forth about it- I tell her it was approved, that this is dangerous for him to do, and they could be liable for what happens (probably not, but for real- this could have hurt him or damaged multiple cars). She says she didn’t know what to do and was trying to make people happy. And so before I leave, I drop this:
“Do you know what you’ve done here? He is a legless combat veteran.”
And I turn on my heel and wait for husband to return. (Let me be clear: No person is more valuable than another because of their military service or disability. We do not ‘pull that card” lightly, but I was so enraged and tired and it just came out).
So he does return in the same pieces he left in and tells me how the trailer first almost ran him over and then into other cars. And then he does something he NEVER does: He logs onto Facebook. A few tags and a post later, he has explained the situation in his words. I share it. We go to sleep.
Y’all. By the time he got up to go talk to someone else, it had blown up. Not viral, but the wounded warrior community is small and it rallies. People are as pissed as we are. But we also believe in giving companies a chance to make things right. It just so happened that their brand-new general manager was in office and reading the post when husband rolled up. The look on his face when he saw firsthand who he was was priceless. Someone else was there, too, and they were speechless. I believe someone actually said out loud, “THAT is who she did this to?!”
So manager dude does all the right things, apologizes profusely, refunds our points for the stay, and then gets us a large gift certificate to Buckhorn Exchange. He honestly felt so badly about it. What really got him was that his FDA had made a point to say that she was trying to appease Diamond members. He said he didn’t care who had what for points or money- if someone pays for a room, they are all to be treated equally. Also, sometimes you don’t get to roll up into a hotel at midnight and get parking. We’ve been there ourselves and never once thought to demand parking- we fucking figured it out like normal people do when they realize it’s their fault they are in a situation.
We both adjust our Facebook posts to reflect the outcome and praise the GM for caring so much. We left them some smoked elk sausage, enjoyed the HELL out of our amazing dinner, and promised we’d stay with them again if we ever had cause to return to Denver.
We did not see the offending FDA again. The GM had told us he had only been there a month and a half and was still cleaning house. I am not sure she still had a job at the end of it all.
TL;DR: husband is a legless person in a wheelchair, we had a truck and trailer that was parked across three parking spots in a downtown hotel parking lot but were approved to do it, FDA bangs on door at midnight and demands that said legless, wheelchair-bound husband move it by himself because she has Diamond members who need to park, husband does incredibly dangerous thing and narrowly avoids losing more limbs or damaging other cars, Facebook is utilized, GM makes amends, and all is well but holy fucking shit that actually happened.
ETA: Wow, I did not expect such a response, and most of it is so positive. That makes me a happy kitty. I do want to clarify a few things, as there have been some questions that are valid: We do just fine in a parking lot with the truck and trailer. The hotel did/does have a flat lot, albeit small. Due to some huge concert though, it was full early on. We only parked it in the deck because we were told it was fine to do so and did not expect to have to move until we left. If there had not been any parking available, we would have probably valeted it at one of the pricier, nearby hotels and been fine. I definitely would not have thrown a fit about it, as it was a downtown hotel- shit happens. But we took the deck and the three spots because again, we were told it was fine and not paying $25 or more to park elsewhere was sweet. We thought we had that shit covered but clearly did not. It goes back to learning that we can’t rely on people to genuinely be helpful. FDA 1 said we were good; FDA 2 actually told us that we had to move it to appease Diamond members. There are always going to be people who judge how you handle life’s shittier moments, so I won’t entertain it. I’m not sure how anyone is “supposed” to act. And finally, I only reference her getting fired because the GM point blank said he was new and had not finished cleaning house yet. I never want someone to lose their way of life, even when they clearly aren’t adept at their job. Not my call. She was rude and now she handled it was so far past “oops, I didn’t know better.” As far as the wounded vet card, I said what I I said at midnight while in the middle of being berated for doing something we were told was fine. We go through a lot of shit with his disability and it’s easy to get fed right the fuck up with people who seem to have no respect or compassion. Y’all are mostly super cool and this is one of my favorite subs!!!
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