chile, we had to leave the hotel . . .

So . . .

Bae and I were invited to spend thanksgiving with our dear friend in Philly - and since D.C. becomes a ghost town around every federal holiday, we figured we’d make the quick drive in exchange for some good food and holiday cheer. It’s only two hours away from D.C. . . . I have Marriott points and we can stay in a cute hotel for free . . . it’ll be great, right?!

So we decided to stay at the Aloft Hotel in Center City which is a gorgeous property. We arrived and were a bit confused by the valet stand that had no valet attendants. Unphased, we parked and walked to the front desk. This is where things started to go south.

The person at the front desk looked like he had an attitude. Not just one attitude, but every attitude. Nevertheless, I put on my biggest “it’s been christmas time since September” smile and wished him a happy thanksgiving before letting him know that I already checked in using my app, and that I only needed my key.

Given how many issues we’ve had with our car (#tchalla"), I was concerned about parking so I asked him what I felt was a reasonable question:

“Sir - how does parking work?”

This man barely looked in my direction as he scoffed and said “valet or self parking.”

. . . at this point, I’m a little nonplussed. I mean, we are obviously out-of-towners, we do not know anything about parking in Philly, and normally, hotel parking is fairly straight forward. Here, it was not.

To you, dear reader, please forgive me because this is the point where most people call me a “diva,” but I expected a bit more of an explanation.

As serendipity would have it, someone called the front desk and obviously posed the same question and the lovely young man answered in the same way - but had the nerve to look visibly annoyed by the question. So after he hung up the phone, I immediately followed up with: “so . . . how much is valet; is valet parking in a covered parking garage; and what do you mean by ‘self-park.”

He replied: Valet is 53 dollars and 8 cents, he didn’t know where the cars were actually parked, and that we would otherwise have to find our own parking on the street.

Park on the street? You don’t know where the parking garage is?!!!!!

Mother obviously clutched her pearls and immediately went for valet parking. Meanwhile, Bae, who has never had a good experience with American valet parking, simply looked on, aghast.

This lovely young woman took our car and told us that if we needed the car to simply call 30 minutes ahead of time and they would have it ready.

So we went upstairs and watched a few episodes of “A Black Woman Comedy Sketch Show” on HBO which is hilarious. About 30 minutes before we wanted to leave, we called the valet per their instructions but no one picked up the phone. So we called again, and asked for our car. We then dutifully waited the required 30 minutes then went downstairs.

Do you know what was not there? . . . Our car.

So they took our valet ticket number (again) and someone went to get the key and the car.

Now - I must stop here to describe the scene because this, ladies and gentleman, was the beginning of the end of our stay at the Aloft by Marriott at City Center, Philadelphia.

We were in a lobby just in front of where cars pull up for the valet. There were maybe 4 attendants standing around at any given time. After someone went to retrieve our vehicle, not 30 seconds later did another valet ask us if we were about to check in.

HIs name is Ryan. Ryan asked the question so quickly that I didn’t quite understand, but using my context clues, I simply proceeded to give him my valet ticket number.

He then raised up his hands at us and said “nah bruh, ain’t nobody even ask for all of that” as he walked out of the lobby and into the ever colder Thanksgiving evening.

The valet parking staff proceeded to snicker and giggle. I was so taken aback by the abject and unjustified rude behavior that my mouth was agape until my husband told me to close it.

I feel a recap is in order here. I did not ask this man any questions. I didn’t approach him. We were patiently waiting on our vehicle, and had the valet parking staff done their jobs, we would have never crossed paths.

So . . . I don’t get it. I do get that working on thanksgiving sucks. I’ve been there. Many of you reading this have been there. No one wants to work on the holidays - ESPECIALLY in a customer service job. It is the literal worst.

But here’s the deal - you can’t just lash out at folks. I have to admit that I was particularly troubled that I was getting this kind of treatment from other black folk. And I certainly didn’t want to be “that black guy” ratting folks out for being bad at their jobs. I am normally THE QUEEN of fierce letters to corporate (Nissan, I’m coming for you), but I really try to give the benefit of the doubt in these situations. It’s thanksgiving. You probably don’t get paid much. Customers probably aren’t tipping you (I had 20 bucks in my pocket specifically for them).

So … Bae and I got in the car and I realized that I have gotten virtually zero good customer service from this 4-star property - and actually felt unsafe. I called my super secret customer service line and had marriott change my reservation on the spot (i’ll be sending them a letter requesting my 53 dollars and 8 cents back as well). The last thing I needed was for someone to randomly take their frustrations out on my car or on us for that matter.

. . . we did eventually make it to thanksgiving dinner - and because I was a bit stressed out, I only ate one and a half plates as opposed to my normal four spread out over a few hours.

I ate so little despite how delicious the food was that I had not gained a single ounce over the thanksgiving holiday. So in a way, I should be thankful to Ryan?