No jewels in this Crowne

I should have picked up on the first clue.

After I checked in to the Crowne Plaza in Austin, Texas I went to the elevator and my key wouldn't work in the executive floor key reader on the elevator. I went back to the front desk and the clerk told me that the middle elevator was always a little weird, and I should use one of the other two. I pushed the button, and the middle elevator door opened. I pushed the button again. No other elevator responded. It was starting to remind me of a Twilight Zone episode I saw once. I finally took the service elevator. The service elevator magically stopped on every floor.

My room on the executive floor was the very last room at the end of the hall. I think it had previously been a closet.

I was actually stunned when I walked in the room. The ceiling was low. The room was almost entirely filled with the king-sized bed, which was actually pushed up to the wall. I don't know how the housekeepers were able to make it up. The nightstand was in the only possible location in the room and was about two feet from the bed. I tried to make the best of it, I really did. But I was supposed to stay three nights at this hotel. I decided it was going to be unacceptable when I realized I was going to have to get out of bed to turn off the lamp or turn off the alarm. The whole experience reminded me of the pictures in my childhood storybook of Alice in Wonderland. When Alice ate the cake she grew so large she had to bend over to stand up in the room. Weird stuff in that book.

I plugged in my laptop at the desk to use the free hotel internet. The signal was so low the internet was virtually nonexistent. I looked at other available wireless networks in the area, and discovered that the hotel next door had a pretty good connection.

I looked for another outlet to charge my blackberry and ended up having to charge it in the bathroom. My cell phone just had to wait its turn. I'm just glad I didn't have to wait in that line.

I decided to stay the night, then checked out the next morning and went to another hotel. If I wanted to stay in a rabbit hole I would've invited Alice.