Jim Sinegal

This weekend Rori and I went with my mom to see the Wizard of Oz that was playing at a Mariott theater. It was a present for my mom's birthday. As an extra treat, my dad, who does some traveling for business, used his hotel points to book us a room so we could spend the night before the play. We did this last year as well. This year, when my mom checked in, she gave my dad's name Jim Sin*ell--she even spelled the name (I have deleted part of the name so that no crazy stalkers will find him--because I have lots of crazy stalkers reading my blog, you know). Anyway, they told my mom she had a room with a king size bed and she explained that we needed two doubles. They made the changes and she discovered we were in the Concierge Wing, which is the VIP area. When we got to our room, the front desk called and I answered. She said, "Mrs. Sinegal?" I said, "Mrs. Sin*ell," but it didn't faze me because I'm used to people butchering my maiden name. And she proceeded to ask if my mom left a book at the front desk, I said no and we hung up. That was the first clue of mistaken identity. Rori wanted to explore the hotel so as we were leaving the room, a bellhop was bringing a tray of assorted chocolate covered strawberries and sparkling water. Mom jokingly asked if it was for us. He said if we are in room 3211. We were! He said, "they are for Jim Sinegal." Mom said, "I'm Victoria Sin*ell." So he delivered them to us and said they were from the hotel manager. We were in awe. Rori was in awe and thought they were beautiful. We didn't eat them, but put them in the fridge for after dinner. We looked at the card. It said Jim Sinegal. Clue number 2. Mom said, I think there's a mixup somewhere. I said, people butcher our name all the time. So we went and toured the hotel. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought mom was right. So mom called the front desk. They asked if she was with Jim Sinegal from Costco. Mom explained that she was not with Jim Sinegal but Jim Sin*ell. The front desk manager told us they had us booked at a different hotel and were sending a bellhop up to get our luggage. And yes, we had to give the strawberries back. We were hugely embarassed. We did the walk of shame out of our VIP room and gave our luggage to the very kind bellhop. Mom went to the front desk and while explaining it all to the manager, started to cry. I told him it was her birthday. He kindly booked us another room, back in the VIP area. We went to dinner and when we came back, the front desk manager had sent us a fruit tray with two bottles of water for mom's birthday. It was way better than the strawberries--I had already decided they were old and dry. At least that's what we told ourselves :) I googled Jim Sinegal, and he is the CEO of Costco. I hope he enjoyed his strawberries...