Jamestown

We were away over the weekend at a 50th Anniversary party in Jamestown, New York. It was a really great family event, and both my wife (who will not be named) and I had a good time.

It was my fourth time last week to go in and out of Buffalo, having picked up my sister-in-law and her family Saturday (the Chautauqua Writers Workshop story), returned my brother-in-law to the airport on Tuesday, took my sister-in-law to the Albright-Know Gallery on Friday and took them all to the airport on Saturday on our way to Jamestown.

Out of all of that I thought I’d get a story but alas, it was pretty uneventful.

However, the weekend approached and off we went and we stayed, as arranged by the family, in the Best Western Downtown Jamestown Hotel, a very nice place, with our getting a group rate.

The day was quiet, we had a lovely evening, and I went to bed. At 5:30 a.m. I awoke (not unusual for me) and went to the bathroom. I noticed they had put the folded bill under the door so I took it into the bathroom to look at it, being mildly interested. The room was $100 plus tax, plus my wife had made two phone calls and I was interested in the cost. We had discussed the merits of calling long distance either by hotel or cell phone and we went with hotel phone, given cross border cell phone rates.

I opened the bill and went to look for my reading glasses, because surely something didn’t look right!

The bill was for $797! Those must have been some phone calls!

My wife woke up as I was making some noise and she asked what was wrong. I asked how long her calls were, and how long distance they were. It was not possible.

I looked carefully at the bill and realized that I had been charged for all seven rooms booked for the party, not just mine.

I put on some clothes and went to the lobby in search of anyone in charge. I left my bill with an understanding clerk and went back, not quite ready to sleep again.

Later, at the lobby breakfast, I spoke with a cashier and I had been charged for the whole party as if we were a bus trip which I had booked. They changed the bill and I was happy. Everyone involved seemed disappointed that I hadn’t been that generous , but accepted the reality.

In the end, when we checked out, they handed us a new bill.

They had forgotten to charge us for the phone calls!

I was smiling!