2002-10-14 - 11:50 p.m.

An expensive day

As I mentioned earlier, recently I've been obsessed with researching chess columns in old newspapers. Last Tuesday I spent the day at the Onondaga Public Library in Syracuse, and my plan this week was to go down to visit the Brooklyn Public Library.

A trip to Brooklyn is a lot less trivial than a trip to Syracuse for two reasons. First, it's at least an hour longer. Second, it's a much more difficult drive because involves dealing with New York City traffic, never easy in the best of circumstances.

My goal was to get to the library when it opened at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, and stay there until it closed at 8 p.m. In order to make sure to get there close to 9 a.m., I'd have to wake up in Frown Town at something like 5 a.m. Ick. This doesn't just have to do with me being a lazy ass who doesn't like to get up early. Doing a four hour drive, followed by 11 hours of research and another four hour drive back again sounds like a recipe for falling asleep at the wheel and killing myself.

So I decided that the thing to do was go down the night before, stay at a hotel, then get a start at a more reasonable time the following day.

That meant that I could leave fairly late in the evening. In fact, the later I left the less crowded the roads were likely to be as I got near Manhattan. However, I got a bit of a later start than I would have liked because I was watching a couple of auctions on eBay. Yes, Mr. Obsessive Monkey is buying more chess books! Now I'm buying up big chunks of the run of British Chess Magazine, which I believe started sometime in the 1870s. God help me, when will it end???

I actually won all three of my auctions, mainly because there is not that much interest in old books and chess magazines.

I actually left just before 9 p.m. and headed south.

My plan for where I was going to stay was really rather vague. Of course it would be silly to drive for an hour and then stop. What seemed smartest would be to drive down to Brooklyn and find a hotel there. That meant I would avoid driving in New York morning rush hour traffic as little as possible. As I discovered, "smartest" was going to be a relative term, as far as I was concerned.

The trip down went without incident. When I'd asked Mapquest to plan the drive down, it took me right through the middle of Manhattan, which was something I wanted to avoid. So I decided to follow the Thruway all the way down to the end, cross into Long Island at the Triboro bridge and then find a place to stay.

Whenever I drive around, especially on major highways, it seems to me that hotels and motels are everywhere. I was under the impression that I could just wander into Brooklyn and stay at the first chain hotel I saw. However, the more urban the setting became, the less I started to see any hotels. Probably most of the roads I was traveling on were used by commuters, and they don't need hotels.

So then I thought, where would I be most likely to find a hotel? Near an airport, of course. LaGuardia Airport was very near Brooklyn, so once I crossed into Long Island, I got on the Long Island Expressway, heading east. Sure enough, just as I was passing LaGuardia I spotted a Marriott hotel, so I took the first exit.

So far I was pretty pleased with myself. Things seemed to be going according to plan.

I was in Queens, NY and I wasn't sure exactly where I was, but I was able to make my way to the hotel by following my nose. It was a help that the hotel was the tallest building around and had a lit red sign on top.

However here's a little something that didn't enter into my calculations. New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world. A hotel room near one of its major airports is not going to be cheap. I really was clueless. I thought that I could get something in the $50-$60 range. Ha! On the way down I stopped at a rest area, and on my way out I snagged one of their free "traveler discount" magazines. I checked the coupon hotel rates for the New York Area and discovered that I'd probably be spending much closer to $100. Uh oh. This was starting to sound like an expensive proposition.

I pulled into the hotel only to discover that they charged for parking. In New York, nothing is free, folks! I then made my first mistake and actually went through the gate into their parking area instead of leaving my car idling out front.

Carrying my bags I went to the front desk, and asked for a room. I'm really afraid to tell you what happened next. It's going to make me sound like an utter moron. Hey, the truth hurts, right?

The people at the desk casually mentioned that the room rate was $249. Holy crap! That was more than double what I was AFRAID of paying!! In Frown Town I could practically rent an apartment for a month for that much money!

I didn't blink. I just handed them my credit card.

Here was my thinking, such as it was. I was already there, and they had me for the parking. It was after midnight and I could wander around forever looking for a hotel, and once I found one there was no assurance that it was going to be any cheaper. The point of going down the night before was to be well rested for the stressful day tomorrow. I could pay a pile of money and go to sleep right now, or I could go to sleep later and maybe just pay the same amount of money elsewhere. So I made the rather expensive choice to cough up the cash and stay put. I did the math in my head in about one second.

Feeling a little stunned, I went up to my room. For $250 I expected to be staying in the presidential suite, but it merely looked like your standard upper-mid-level hotel room. However, since it was on the ninth floor, it had a splendid view of the runways of LaGuardia. Marvy.

There was a little insult waiting for me in the bathroom. There was a bottle of Evian water, with a little tag on it. Basically the tag explained that the bottle was there for the convenience of the guests, but if it was opened $5 would be added to your bill. Five dollars for this little quart bottle of water? Buying a six-pack of beer would be cheaper! Bite me! I'll drink tap water, thank you very much.

In retrospect, just going down blind looking for a hotel was a stupid idea. Just now, twenty minutes spent trolling the internet found me a hotel room even nearer to Brooklyn for just $95. Well, live and learn. I just wish the lessons weren't so goddamn expensive!