Tulsa Time

The day before yesterday we made it back to Ark-can-sas and headed to Oklahoma once again. Mr. Lane called the guy in Tulsa to find out exactly where his shop was located. The man told him they were closing. It was 3 p.m. so we were able to turn it in early. It sucked missing the delivery time. We were happy however, to be able to get out of the truck at a decent time.

In Oklahoma we found out Best Western does not have the best internet service. The poor kid behind the counter learned the hard way that Lois must have internet. I made him call his manager in order to either get a discount or get it fixed. While I talked to his manager on the phone, he was calling the internet repair man. Now that was service.

Within minutes the cable guys came to the hotel to fix the internet. As it turns out, rebooting the modem and then the router, like I suggested to the boy at the counter did the job. Stupid pimple head should have listened. Able from cable was impressed that a girl could have a clue. I just batted my eyelashes at him and said, "Lucky guess."

After they rebooted the modem all was well. Thankfully I complained quickly enough and was able to talk to the manager and get a nice little discount. I told the manager half of the troubles we've had along our travels with various hotels over the past 10 days and she felt bad for us.

I explained, "Our only good hotel experience was at a Best Western. We have five criteria when looking for a hotel, swimming for the kids, preferably an indoor pool because of the bad weather, air conditioning because it's hotter than shit out, a comfy bed for the tired working man, cable TV to lull Mr. Lane to sleep and high-speed internet, to keep me from killing people, which is why we wanted to stay at Best Western. Every place besides Best Western has messed up at least two of those things." (At least, I think that's what I said. I was just buttering her biscuit.)

She said, "Oh my honey. Oh, bless your heart. I'm real sorry things ain't goin' right fer y'all."

She was too cute to be pissed off at so we talked for about 20 minutes. I told her Mr. Lane was already comfy in bed and I really would feel awful if I had to wake him to switch to a different hotel. Then, I came in for the kill. I asked for at least half off of our bill. We paid $67.90 originally. She put me on hold and told me she was going to talk to her boss. I listened to the country music that played softly into my ear, calming me during another stressful time. I was thankful that my stressful time did not include divorce, death or a sexy tractor like in those songs.

She came back to the line to tell me she tried everything and said her boss was just not going to be able to go with half off. Then, she said, the best she could do for me was $32.70.

"Is that with or without tax?" I asked.

"With. I just wish I coulda got it down more fer ya honey. At least ta half."

Math wasn't her strong suit and I am not one for pointing out people's flaws. I thanked her for her time and headed back to our room. Mr. Lane (who wasn't really sleeping) was proud but still was bummed for me that I didn't have internet. I told him I could use my laptop in the lobby, where the internet is working fine. I told the kids to get their swimsuits on and we headed to the lobby. There was a huge window looking into the pool area, bonus. I sat down, booted up and before I could open my e-mail, the internet fixer guys were there!

I had some real live work to do for Mr. Lane on the internet so it wasn't just my fuck off time that was being tampered with. I was hooking him up with other companies to haul for so he does less back and forth empty one way, which works out to be a lot of wasted fuel. Over the weekend, when I am home (man that sounds good!) I'll explain a little more about Mr. Lane's business so maybe this will all make more sense.

We are finished with Oklahoma and made it to Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ark-can-sas and now we are in Missouri. If we see the cemetery again, mentioned a few posts below, I may rethink photos. If nothing goes on tomorrow by noon, we are heading home. Home sweet home. I'll post about all the other states once I am back in my comfy chair, with my yummy coffee.