GRUDGE OF THE WEEK #2
Every week, I’ll be sharing a new grudge that’s not in my book — sometimes mine, sometimes someone else’s (with their permission, obviously!) There are plenty of new grudges born every minute – send yours to grudgescanbegood@gmail.com if you would like to share it and have it analysed!
WHAT DO I WANT TO BE NO LONGER A THING?
One of my own Grudges
Hotels playing really loud music with pounding rhythms that shake my hotel room when I’d ideally like to go to sleep. At a hotel recently, the sixth floor bar/event space hosted a Friday night party that was so loud, my room (on the fifth floor) was shaking from the noise. I asked to move rooms. While I was moving, I encountered three other fifth floor guests, all also being moved. There we all were, pyjama-clad, disconsolately wheeling our suitcases around in the middle of the night when we would have preferred to be asleep.
In my new room, I could still hear a faint pulse of bass, but it was bearable. I slept. The next morning, I suggested to the hotel staff that it was unreasonable to play music in any part of the hotel that’s so loud, it prevents guests from sleeping. Two members of staff gave me the same answer: ‘I quite understand, and we’re sorry, but you see we always have a big party here on Friday and Saturday nights, until late, and the people who come for the party expect the music to be very loud.
I explained to the hotel staff that I was going to hold a Misunderstanding of the Main Role of a Hotel Grudge about them, and that is the exact species of grudge I am now holding. A hotel is primarily a place people pay to sleep in. This particular hotel (like many I’ve stayed in before it) misunderstands its central purpose, and is under the illusion that a hotel is supposed to be a mainly a nightclub that happens to have some beds in it. Imagine a butcher’s shop (main function = selling meat) that had vegans lined up ready to punch customers in the face if they said ‘May I have some lamb chops, please?’ Would that be a butcher’s shop that was able to do its primary job effectively? No, it would not.
I love this grudge because it’s going to improve my life significantly. From now on, before booking or allowing myself to be booked into any hotel, I am first going to ask: ‘Do you plan to play any loud music at any point during my stay that might prevent me from sleeping?’ If the answer is yes, I will go and find another, quieter hotel. On principle, however, I think *any* hotel that prevents *any* of its guests from sleeping in this way during reasonable night-time hours doesn’t entirely deserve to be still in business. That’s some Bad Hotel.
Discover Sophie’s Grudge Type classification system in HOW TO HOLD A GRUDGE – available from all good book retailers now!
OTHER GRUDGE GOODIES
“About devastating historical events and atrocities, we often say, ‘Never forget’. Why? Is it that we want to extend the suffering for as long as possible? No, of course not — it’s because we know that history (the horrible bits of it especially) contains useful lessons and warnings that we would be fools to ignore.
Yet about upsetting personal incidents, we often hear people say, ‘Don’t hold a grudge. Move on, for your own sake.’ Every time we say this, we are effectively asking someone to forget the important warnings and lessons from their own life history.”
