Sheraton Annapolis II

I had a return visit to the Sheraton Annapolis. When I checked in, the people welcoming me were very kind & solicitous. I actually felt a little guilty about dissing the place during an earlier stay.

Part of my unusually forgiving frame of mind was that I'd just finished reading a really wonderful travel book, Shadow of the Silk Road, by the eminent British travel writer, Colin Thubron. Like all the books I've read of his, they're perspicacious, illuminating and instructive, as well as being beautifully written. En route from Xian, in western China, through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Northern Iran, and Turkey to the Mediterranean, Mr. Thubron had to lodge in some dodgy places - without running water, with clogged lavatories, etc. etc. So how could I have complained about the Sheraton Annapolis' missing soda machines, dirt on the floor and creepy Nutcracker statues? (See earlier post, here.)

The lobby looked nice.



And the halls still featured my beloved enormous hound's tooth pattern.



So far, it seemed as if my cranky review from before may have been inaccurate.

With this unusually cheerful and open frame of mind, I entered my room. The first thing I noticed was that the sink stopper was broken.



The paint by the door handle was missing in places.



The ceiling sprinkler flange was misplaced somewhere.



Kind of picayune whining, I know. But then I saw that the floor molding by the closet had been wrenched off.



And for the piece de resistance, someone or thing (termites? beavers?) had removed a large chunk from the dresser drawer. How could no one have noticed this? I actually took two photos, to show off the missing piece to full advantage.




That was one of the weirdest hotel items I've observed yet.

Aside from my room being tormented by the unceasing sound of the elevator motors, two more peculiarities struck me before I returned home.

One was the odd letter spacing in one of the two elevators, which, in part, reminds me of Chico Marx's "Italian" accent. (I'm sure you'll spot the words to which I'm referring; notto and subjectto).



The final incongruity appears not at the Sheraton, but at BWI, immediately following the TSA examination area in Concourse C.

What appears to be a typical airport seating bench,



Turns out to be (and I'll admit, I've never seen one before) a TSA (read: official) "recomposure" area.



Interestingly, if you google(r) the definition of recomposure, you receive the following query:

"Did you mean: define decompose"?

No, I didn't actually. I had a plane to catch, after all.