Bee Travel
If those hotel walls could talk ...
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel
Room 871. Its walls are talking. This room at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. is the latest to spill its incendiary mysteries. Truth be told, statistically speaking, any room in that hotel likely has a story to tell. What goes on behind hotel room doors is speculation we choose not to idle in too much.

Hotels are nearly perfect for assignations. "Assignations" - a word I had to look up this week, for its meaning in this case was quite specific. They're somewhat anonymous on the surface, cloistering guests and their details like a monastery. What happens in the hotel room stays in the hotel room ... well, nearly always.

More interesting than the kitchen in a fine restaurant are the inner workings experienced behind the front desk of virtually any hotel. What requests they field from their guests. They may forget who called to ask, but not what they called to ask for. There's the anonymity of it. "Can you send up extra towels? Bubble bath? More champagne?" … or, well, something more … er … exotic, earthy, embarrassing. Fine hotels engage discreet people to handle such requests with aplomb, regularity and in an unseen manner, paying them for their perceived blindness, oxymoronically speaking.

The Mayflower has pedigree; its walls have ensconced the rich, famous, infamous, and - now - deposed. Its proximity to the White House, not to mention the D.C. address in general, means it has embraced lots of presidents and celebrities. A far cry from the legalized brothels of Nevada, Amsterdam and Australia, this is the sort of place where the known go to blend in, disappear, and otherwise misbehave, under the watchful eyes of well-paid, discreet doormen, hotel managers and maids.

Hoteliers and their properties have put up with such trysts, and lots more. There was the era of rock-star trashings by over-enthused and highly drugged band members. There are stories of bodies stuffed in between box springs and mattresses and the occasional testing of hotel accoutrements to assess their sanitation. Bad service and dirty lodgings make for fascinating reading, too, at Web sites like Trip Advisor.

My own experiences are considerably less randy. Of course, I haven't (yet) incurred the Big Brother scrutiny our former governor has. I don't have enough money to move to be suspect, for one thing. I do admit to having pilfered an ashtray out of the Martinique Meridian Hotel in 1971. I have a sister who stole a hair dryer out of her hotel room - but they slapped a $20 charge on her credit card for the indiscretion. It may have happened that once I tippled to excess and tried my room key (without success) on a room that wasn't mine. I'll take the shampoo and hand cream, too, but then what would any self-respecting hotel do with slightly diminished samples, anyway?

And aside from such antics that attend honeymoons and trips with husbands, there isn't much more for me to report. I am a model hotel guest.

But who isn't? At least until the walls talk.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)