At 10:40, Joe woke me up, and knowing we wouldn't make the 11:00 checkout, we called to get a late checkout for noon -- which Robert and I did yesterday without a problem, and Joe and I did last week without a problem.
Whomever answered Joe's call at the front desk, responded to our request, "Yes, there'll be a $25.00 charge."
"For a noon checkout?" Joe asked incredulously.
"Yes, $25.00."
"Well, we've gotten a free late checkout for noon in the past," Joe tried.
"Are you a Choice member?"
"Yes, I am," Joe replied.
"Okay, then you get a free late checkout of 2:00 as a Choice member."
What a bunch of crap. We each just spent over $350 there for a four-day stay, the hotel is nowhere near full; in fact, it's quite empty; and they're going to try and charge us $25.00 for an extra hour? Don't make me shift into UPPER CASE.
At noon, we checked out, and tried out a new Port City Java location, in Lumina Station.
We both plopped down on big, comfortable, over-stuffed looking chairs. To the chagrin of both our coccyx's, the very center of the virtually cushionless chair had a steel bar running vertically through it.
Just before Joe got up to place a simple order of an asiago cheese bagel and some coffee, a man came in in front of him, and ordered $36.00 worth of lunch for a family of four.
Though we didn't run into any bridezilla meetings, we did encounter a whole lot of noise going on at this location.
A man sat next to me and made a series of calls on his cell phone -- all just "chit chatty" calls, which I hate. It's like people would rather talk about nothing with someone else to avoid being alone with themselves. If it's stories about nothing that interest you, watch Seinfeld.
Over on Joe's side, there was some kind of family reunion going on, which involved about 6 people, at least one of whom was deaf, and another of which was a screaming baby who had just discovered how fascinating it is to continuously throw his toy down on the floor every time it is returned by an aiding and abetting adult.
All this in the midst of giggling, incessant baby-talk by the adults, and, "Aww, ain't he cute?" Not so much.
I forgot to mention an exciting e-mail that I received yesterday. It was from one of my favorite, and most respected professors, in the MS Tech Comm program, and he asked me if I'd be interested in being a research assistant to him in a research project he is working on.
I responded to him with, "That would be a big yes ma'am ticket," and asked how we should proceed. Actually, I made no such campy response. What I actually said was, "Yes! I'm very interested! I'm in Wilmington for the weekend, but could meet with you on Wednesday or Friday of this week to discuss." I'm excited about the opportunity.
We left the coffee shop, and Wilmington, at about 2:00, and had an uneventful ride back to Raleigh. There was virtually no traffic, for which we were thankful.
We stopped at a Rest Area in which, when I went to the sink to wash my hands, the automatic faucet came on before my hands were any where near the faucet. You might have a pot-belly if it hangs over the sink enough to start an automatic faucet.
Back home, I did a load of laundry and took a nap, before heading out to Flex to meet Joe and Kevin (av8rdude
I played three games of pool with Bill, who's quite good at the game. He won the first game, as I scratched on the eight ball, and he sunk the eight ball on each of the next two games while I still had three balls left. It could have been worse.
The bar wasn't working for Joe tonight, and he left at about 11:30. The rest of us (Kevin, Eric, et. al.) all left at around midnight.