With Love from I Have a Death Wish, NJ

I am getting ready to leave for a trip to NJ.  I get to go there rather frequently ~ not as frequently as Long Island, but enough.  I have to admit, there are some lovely places in New Jersey.  I just rarely get to go to those places.  No, I get to go to the New Jersey that is represented by the people you see on Cake Boss and Jersey Shore.   For my loving friends out there in NJ, I feel sorry that this is what people get to see, but I have to admit ~ I see the same when I am out there.  Not everywhere, but enough to have to tell my sister “well, yes, a lot of people in NJ ARE like the bride that destroyed the beautiful wedding cake hours before her wedding trying to teach the talented baker what color is.”

I digress.

There are some places in Jersey you just don’t stay.  I stayed there.  There are some places in Jersey you just don’t go. I had to go there.

I booked my hotel for this trip and when I let my colleague know where I was staying, she said absolutely not.  She then sent me this review:

stay far away

Jun 15, 2009

This is one of the most disgusting hotels I have ever seen. The manager was unavailable even to the the choice hotel customer service center. I was chased in the parking lot by a little dog. People were making out in the parking lot. Drunks were stumbling in with bottles in brown bags looking for rooms. Stray cats were sneaking in the back of the hotel through a hole in the wall.
The manager told the desk clerk to charge our rooms for one night even though we did not stay. We were there for two hours until we got rooms at the Holiday Inn next door which was excellent. We went into one room and there was a dead bug in the bathtub. Wires are exposed everywhere. The breakfast area is a card table with four folding chairs.

Good hotel if your a prostitute or crack addict.

Needless to say, we aren’t staying there.  It did remind me of a hotel I stayed at in Elizabethtown, NJ.  I though to myself, “Self, why not stay close to the airport tonight and then in the AM, go back to the airport & pick up the rental.” Myself answered back, “Superb idea.  That’s why I like you.  Good thinking.”

I don’t know why I stayed. My review would be quite similar to the one above, but I’ve even got pictures!

Unfortunately, you can’t see it here but, there is, underneath the emergency instructions, someone scribed “Please, Lord, don’t let me die here.”  I wanted to 2nd that. Notice the daylight you can see under the door.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see that the door didn’t really close.  I put all the furniture that I could move in front of it.

The next picture is showing where the “deadbolt” was suppose to bolt into.  Yeah, it’s didn’t line up.  

No, I am not a stupid person normally and no, I shouldn’t have stayed, but then I couldn’t write a blog to entertain you with my temporary insanity.

I “slept” in my clothes on the twin bed (what kind of hotel has one twin bed in room big enough to hold 2 kings?). I moved the furniture in front of the door.  I ate the mints in my travel baggage.  I was scared to leave.  I was scared to order food ~ I’d have to move the furniture and open the door, which opened out onto the parking lot.

When I awoke, I went to open the curtains and was dismayed to find that there was a sliding glass door there.  With no lock.

Needless to say, I survived.  I went on to a friend’s lovely wedding in one of the pretty parts of Jersey, where my cell phone disrupted the ceremony.

Can’t take me anywhere.