Salty Paws, this year’s beach house, was rented from the Sound and Surf Realty Company, an organization committed to the twin principles of the customer is always wrong...and anything bad that might happen to the customer is merely the nature of the business. For example...according to the company website, check-in time for their properties is 6:00 pm. Despite this late hour, they assure the customer that should the property become available earlier, a text would be sent to the renter and early entry granted, Indeed, in 2017, when we rented from the same company, we received such a text at 1:00 pm. This year, we decided to shoot the gap and plan on arriving around 3:00. Bad decision. When Pam and I pulled up and discovered that the house had not been cleaned and it was already nearly 4:00 in the afternoon, my sister Paula was already rehearsing her finger-wagging tirade for the first company hack who had the guts to show up to face one of the infamous and dreaded hip-sisters. At roughly 6:00, our guaranteed check-in time, a hapless flunky pulled up in the driveway, and pulled a pack of bed sheets from the trunk of his car! His response to Paula was something about the fact that his company was understaffed, a fact that was definitely not our problem, but most certainly the problem of the Sound and Surf Realty Company...which after Paula’s tongue-lashing should have been renamed the Sound and Fury Realty Company.
By 6:25, all was well, and all 19 of us were allowed to enter the house, right after the wide-eyed cleaning crew had slunk away through a side door. I’m quite sure that these overworked and underpaid folks gave it their best shot, but when you’re pretty sure you can tell what the last family had for dinner last night from the crumbs still on the kitchen counter, you kinda know you’re in trouble. This morning, the first attempt to retrieve a coffee cup from the cabinet yielded a handsome white ceramic mug with a charming lining of fried-on scrambled eggs around the circumference of the interior. My reaction was first frustration at the poor cleaning job, but second and more importanatly...confusion at the question that immediately lept to mind, ie. who eats scammbled eggs out of a coffee mug??
But, time passes and eventually you get over the sanitation issues. I mean, what’s Lysol for if not for this occasion? So, I find a clean mug, pour my coffee and sit down on one of the comfortable but stained rocking chairs when this catches my eye...
Now, normally I’m not the kind of guy who pays much attention to...rules. But, this list of regulations for the use of the hot tub were alarming on many fronts. At the top of the form we are instructed that Hot Tub use is NOT for everyone. What it should have said was...Hot Tub use is not for ANYONE. For instance, how many people in this family over the age of 25 don’t take any prescription drugs? And I had no idea that hypertension and high blood pressure were, in fact, two different ailments?! But, assuming we pass the first prohibited list, the list of rules for use raise several disturbing questions... Take the third item on the list for example...
No use of hot tub if bottom cannot be seen clearly.
What in the Sam Hill is going on at the Sound and Surf Realty Company? I mean who are these people? Are they trying to tell us that we cannot enjoy the hot tub unless we are naked? You would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but then three bullet points later comes the declaration: Do Not Use Alone. So, they are cool leaving us a filthy beach house, but gleefully encourage lascivious behavior in the hot tub!!
But, now that we all have the first 24 hours under our belt, we are warming up to the place. The air conditioning has been stellar, the plumbing, heroic. The performance of the electricity has been faultless. And although any exploration into a random drawer in the kitchen is liable to produce evidence of previous meals from perhaps years ago, for the most part we are happy with the place.
It’s a shame about that hot tub though...
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