Greetings from the Holiday Inn:

We at Holiday Inn appreciate the business you gave us with your recent First Annual Humorists Convention; however, there are still a few unfinished items regarding your accommodations that need to be attended to:

First: We would like to request that all the guests who took our towels and linens home, please return them. While Holiday Inn is able to deal with a few missing towels, 25 entire sets are a bit much and represent a significant financial loss for our company.

Second: We have received a large number of complaints from your group about the lounge running out of light beer on tap. That is not the fault of Holiday Inn. You should have warned us ahead of time that your party contained such a usually large number of dieters so that we could order extra barrels.

While we are on the subject of beer, would the person who threw up in the elevator while joy riding up and down please exercise better judgment next time. Otherwise, Holiday Inn may be forced to bill you for the carpet cleaning required. That also applies to the carpeting in the ballroom where you held the festivities Saturday night. While we are uncertain exactly what happened in there, it was reported that hysterical laughter ensued all evening and several people left with wet pants.

We regret that Holiday Inn was unable to provide your guests with views of the lake from all guestrooms. However, may we remind you that you were given a greatly discounted rate? Also, from the looks of the guests in your group, they were too imbibed to know whether they had a lake view or not.

Holiday Inn received many complaints from our other guests regarding the loud late night partying. You may be interested to know that the security guards have been fired for their part in instigating your beer fest. They have now gone into private convention planning and have requested that we notify you that they are available now for consultation.

Doggie bags and taking of extra food from the food buffet is against Holiday Inn policy; however, we are willing to let it go this time since you may not have been aware of these rules. We have the lady’s purse that was lost with the leftovers from the seafood buffet inside and are holding it at our front desk until it is claimed.

Thanks to your group, we have lost several of our most valuable employees. One of our waiters became a stand-up comedian on Sunday morning while attempting to serve your breakfast group. He was so encouraged by the gales of laughter that he handed in his resignation to Holiday Inn shortly after you left and has gone to California to get into show biz.

The barmaid who was changing into her work clothes in a ladies restroom stall Friday evening would like to know who stole her vintage denim shorts? We cordially request that you return this personal clothing item immediately as good barmaids are in great demand and we at Holiday Inn would hate for her to leave us also.

The bartender has been given a leave of absence to recover from exhaustion. Fortunately, Holiday Inn was able to replace him on short notice by giving his job to a formerly homeless person who was hanging around outside at the time and was willing to work for food. Unfortunately, this person seems to be on a “liquid diet” and at this point, we are losing money.

Holiday Inn is presently taking bids for repair of the broken ceiling tiles throughout the motel and the peephole through the wall. Individual guests will be contacted by Holiday Inn regarding the missing irons, coffeepots, pictures, and television sets. Please be reminded that we have your credit card numbers. We will not charge you for the stains made by guests blowing soap bubbles in the lobby prior to your Duck Tour. After all, it was a humorist convention and Holiday Inn is willing to tolerate some friskiness.

May we take the liberty of commenting that Holiday Inn did not find all the humor columns about the unusual weather funny. We are innkeepers, not weathermen, and cannot be responsible for rain or uncooperative weather. We hope that tourism will not be affected by any negative publicity you bring us. The staff here at Holiday Inn deeply regrets that you all got cold and wet on the Duck Tour. (ha ha)

That pretty much takes care of the major unfinished business. We realize that you have a choice and we would like to thank you for choosing Holiday Inn. We would be remiss if we failed to inform you that we have generously opted not to put your group on the Holiday Inn “black list” at this time. But if any of you are ever planning to return to this area, please take our advice and do not plan to remain in this town after sunset.

Sincerely yours,
The Management
Holiday Inn

Copyright 2000 Sheila Moss