Last weekend we visited Kid #1 in Moses Lake, Washington, which is about a five-hour drive from Camas if you stop for an unnecessarily long lunch in Tri Cities. With Kids #1 and #2 starting college in just a few weeks, we wanted to squeeze in one more visit before they were both knee-deep in boring professors, annoying dorm mates, and hopefully part-time jobs.
The drive there was pretty tame, save for the fact that Black Momba decided to crack her overflow tank and leave us this heartfelt message the morning after arrival.
If you’ve never been to Moses Lake, it’s a pollen filled agriculture town that’s more or less in the middle of Washington state. There is an actual lake, but no resorts or overpriced marina shops to wander through. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which was very nice, and I highly recommend it if you find yourself in ML.
I travel for both work and vacation here and there, so I’ve seen some pretty cool tech gadgets in hotels over the years. But I did not expect to find one in the Moses Lake Holiday Inn. In fact, it took me a bit to even find it!
What’s the first thing you do when you get to your hotel room? I claim the bed I want by dropping my bag on it, take a peek out the window, and then go check out the bathroom.
· Bed by the window, check
· View of highway, awesome
· Bathroom…why won’t the light turn on? Flick…flick…flick, flick, flick…ugh.
My first thought was to check the breaker box, but um, I wasn’t at home. Then I thought, well maybe there is some sort of master light switch by the door. Voila!
Never have I ever seen this before. In what I’m guessing is a green attempt to conserve energy, this room required me to insert my key card to activate all the power in the room. Pretty cool! Or is it?
For the first day my husband and I diligently kept track of our two room keys. We must have swapped them in and out of that slot a dozen times, trying not to lock ourselves out while splitting up for different outings. The system sort of worked, because the key was right by the door to grab on the way out. But this wasn’t the system we were used to. Usually, we both keep a key card in our wallet, so that we each always have one.
After a day of swapping, we got lazy and just left one of the cards in the slot. I knew this increased my chances of doing the walk of shame down to reception to get another key card. I’ve done that before and it’s embarrassing. Not more embarrassing than punching in the safe code wrong as you lock it, but close.
You know how it sometimes takes you a few days to come up with a brilliant work-around? Well, this was one of those times. About ten minutes before we were leaving to return home, my hubby figured out how to trick the system. I’m actually surprised he didn’t figure it out sooner, but at least now we know for next time we encounter one of these master light switches.
The trick – you can literally insert anything into that slot. It doesn’t have to be your room key!
I don’t suggest metal, but anything that will safely break the “make or break” switch inside that slot will work.
My husband just happened to have a parking lot ticket that was the same size as the key card, but we shoved other items in there and it worked.
So, the next time your hotel room has one of these baby’s, Keep it Golden, Girl, and insert that Dutch Bros receipt floating around the bottom of your purse. It will spare you the anxiety of locking yourself out of your room and keep your flat iron hot!
Golden Girls Episode Recommendation: S7E8 The Monkey Show Part 1
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