My Hotel Holiday Wish List

Dear Hotel Santa:

When stocking hotel rooms for 2010, please have your elves keep the following in mind:

1. Just because we are tea-drinkers, we still need our morning jolt. Therefore, please leave bags of caffeinated tea next to the in-room coffeemaker, instead of just the herbal dreck (which isn't really tea, anyway). One more note: As you are gifting coffee drinkers with upscale brands like Wolfgang Puck and Starbucks, you should provide the teatotalers (sic) something better than Lipton bags, which are a mere step up from generic.

2. However, if your elves would like to get rid of those cheap plastic coffeemakers altogether, that would be a good thing. They always seems to leave the fresh taste of melted plastic in one’s morning beverage. It’s more obvious in tea, since the flavor of said beverage isn’t as brisk, but it can be discerned in a cup of joe as well. Instead, please deliver those nice electric water kettles. Stock with Starbucks Via or another gourmet instant coffee (not a total oxymoron) and Twinings teabags and you’re brewing.

3. The wise philosopher Confucius said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Said statement is best encapsulated by hotel alarm clocks, most of which are as mind-baffling as a Rubik’s Cube. In reality, all we want for Christmas and beyond is an alarm clock that is easy to set, dependable, and quiet. Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance man extraordinaire, noted that “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Kudos to the Fairmont Battery Wharf in Boston for listening to Leonardo. The five-star property resorts to old-fashioned, non-electric, wind-up alarms. Perhaps these might befuddle the 20-something set, but for the rest of us, they are a godsend.

4. Elves, please add outlets. And please add them in spaces not located behind the bed or other heavy furniture. Plug them into logical places--by the bathroom sink (for hair dryers and electric razors); by the desk (for computers and cell phone chargers); and by the closet (for the iron).

That's all for now, Santa. But I'll be back with my airplane wish list soon. Thank you.