You are a crook, I should know!

Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not a crook. Hey, where did that Hilton bath towel come from?

Last month I visited the unclaimed baggage center in Scotsboro Alabama. They sort items that are in peoples lost luggage for sale. There is a whole department that sells the hotel amenity items (soaps, shampoos sewing kits etc). They sort them by hotel brand and when they hav alot they package and sell them. You can buy a package of about 75 hotel soaps for $2.00. There must be a lot of people collecting these items if they can stock a whole department based on the pickings from just the lost luggage.

Jay

Yes, even I take something from the hotel rooms.

I take the little bottles of mouthwash so the next morning I can wash out that morning breath of cigars and beer.

As for the tissues... considering the hotel probably paid like 25 cents a box for them I see no problem.

During my recent trip to Germany, over half the hotels I visited have done away with the individual bottles, and now dispense liquid soap and shower/shampoo gel from fixed wall dispensers.

Re: toilet paper, on a past tour when we were planning to cross by ferry to Morocco for six days, our tour manager asked us to take an extra roll from our rooms in Spain, to be on the safe side. It came in handy at the mid-morning rest areas with no paper...

I ran this past a friend, who came back with an interesting reply: She would consider it inappropriate to take an entire unopened box of tissues, but she had no problem wirh taking most of the individual tissues out of said box, leaving a few as a 'signal' to the housekeeper to replenish the supply for the next guest.

Just been reading Pico Iyer's latest book "The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home" and boy does it resonnance our lives...

He starts a chapter on rootlessness among a whole new class of professionals who are frequent flyers -- not to be confused with "Jet Setters" -- with a description of what he found in the Hong Kong apartment of friends he was staying with:

"When I went into the guest bathroom to splash some water over my face -- I hadn't yet come down to earth -- I found some Thai Air hair treatment next to the sink, and a bottle of La Quinta Resort & Spa moisturizer. There was a Delta business class toilet kit nearby, as well as a British Airways towlette and some Princess Cruises French formula shampoo. Otherwise, nothing whatsoever, except for some toothpaste from some Imperial Hotel."

Now doesn't that describe the guest bathroom in most of our own homes, or what?

A must-read for most of us who visit these fora!

In the July 2, NYT Magazine THE ETHICIST declares that taking the soap bars from a hotel and donating them to a shelter is "taking advantage." Hmmmm. If I use it, or take it home and give it away, how is this taking advantage?

I wouldn't take the toiletries and donate them for the ethicist's "taking advantage" reasoning, and also because it amounts to saying that hotels are somehow responsible for supplying our homeless shelters.

As for kleenex and toilet paper, I'm the opposite: I bring my own! Chronic sinusitis means I use a lot of the former, and I've found the three-ply versions hold up a lot better in my pockets than most hotels' (cheap) 2-ply. As for toilet paper, my favorite hotel in Paris is perfect except in this provision; I decided long ago it was easier to bring a roll with me (which I leave in the room instead of carting it home) rather than search for a "better" favorite hotel (at the same low price)!

Aren't we humans wierd?

At $100-200 a room nite in most major cities, the tissues are pretty much built into that price methinks!

The hotel chain that decides to stock all known brands of toilet paper and lets guests specify their preference on check-in will instantly gain major market share, methinks.

If we justify a $100 to $200 room being worth a box of Kleenex....

Airline tickets are usually more: what are thoughts on airline blankets and flatware?

I cherish my metal Air Canada spork....

Airlines may be guilty, too: I was served a US Air glass in Continental FC. They say it was a catering mistake, but....

[This message has been edited by Viajero Joven (edited 07-05-2000).]

My one regret is that I never had the guts to swipe those adorable airplane-shape Salt and Pepper shakers in VS Upper . . . . .

Hey Non,

As one VS FA told me on a recent IAD-LON flt
in UD class, "Oh go ahead, everybody does."
Turn 'em over and you'll find the statement,"Pinched from Virgin Atlantic."

So, they sit on my kitchen table!

[This message has been edited by tvl4free (edited 07-05-2000).]