Alright, this isn’t hugely parenting-related, but I’m at a blogging conference — Blog Business Summit where I’m actually co-chair and a presenter — and am staying at the beautiful, historic Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco.
When I got here, I opened the closet to hang up my clothes and was surprised to see an ironing board and, sitting on the floor, an iron.
But, um, who actually irons in a hotel room?
Here I am in a hotel that’s over $200/night, with 24 hour room service, a full concierge, and a one hour laundry service (admittedly, not a cheap one hour laundry service, but still) and chock-a-block with high-powered business people.
So, again, who irons at this hotel?
In fact, if I were into conspiracy theories, I’d wonder if there wasn’t some curious collusion between iron manufacturers and hoteliers. I mean, think of the millions of hotel rooms around the world: how many of them have ironing boards and irons sitting in the closet, untouched for years at a time?
Having said that, yes, I used the iron this morning to remove the creases on my shirt — after all, I’m speaking twice today — perhaps breaking the trend of months going by without anyone touching an iron in the hotel.
How about you? Do you use the iron in a hotel room, or is it just something curious, an oddity in the closet?
By the way, I’m delighted to see that there are lots of attachment parents and parenting bloggers here at this event! So far, Jim Turner, well-known as the author of “daddy blog” Genuine Blog, and I have had a lovely discussion last night with Shylah and another blogging parent (though I don’t recall their blog, alas!)
um, they’re called “women”
Ah, um, err, I’m glad *I* didn’t say that, Susan! 🙂
My wife and I always iron in our rooms. We don’t know how to wear wrinkled clothes. She even irons her t-shirts! I know it may be wierd, but I guess we’re just an ‘ironic’! (sorry to put such an ungraceful pun on your site)
Often business travellers are not reimbursed for laundry and dry-cleaning unless on a trip of over 1 week. For those first 7 days (and most business trips fall into this short timeframe) you need to get rid of suitcase creases on your own dime. But I’m much like you: the only time I _ever_ iron is in hotels!
I absolutely iron my clothes in the hotel room. I present at a lot of academic conferences, and while the university I’m affiliated with will usually pick up the tab for the hotel room, they wouldn’t pay for my laundry or ironing! I imagine it’s similar for other institutions/companies, and if I have the choice between paying $10 for one-hour service or just doing it myself, I do it myself.
I own a 3 stars Hotel in NY and I equipped all my rooms with irons (after many people asked for that). Why not? 🙂
When travelling on business, I pretty much always use the iron (even for so-called “wrinkle free” shirts which inevitably aren’t after being in luggage) and get annoyed if the hotel room doesn’t have one. When travelling on personal time, my clothes typically don’t need ironing, but my wife’s often do. So yes, count me among the users of irons.
Dan
I was one of those other parents you met, and I enjoyed the talk. 😀
I’ve never used the iron in a hotel room. Heck, I rarely use one at home either. I try to make sure I hang everything up (even t-shirts) so that I can avoid that step altogether. Bleh.