A sacred ritual where you pay $279 a night to sleep on a mattress that feels like a giant marshmallow someone sat on, eat a $22 continental breakfast that's just sad muffins in a basket, and get nickel-and-dimed for the privilege of existing in a building that isn't your house.
Now hotels have decided the real money is in charging you for stuff that was free last Tuesday.
We're talking resort fees for hotels that are nowhere near a resort.
We're talking "destination fees" in cities nobody has ever described as a destination.
I stayed at a place in Ohio last month that charged me a $35 "amenity fee" and the only amenity was a broken ice machine and a lobby that smelled like wet carpet from 2009.
Hotels are now putting mini-fridges in rooms and locking them behind a sensor, so if you so much as breathe on a bottle of water, you owe $8.
I once moved a Diet Coke to make room for my leftovers and got charged $6 for "consumption." I didn't consume it.
I just wanted my Chipotle to have a home.
My Chipotle did not survive the night and neither did my faith in hospitality.
And let's talk about the "complimentary" breakfast that's now $18 if you want anything that isn't a single banana on a plate that looks like it's been sitting there since the Obama administration.
The coffee is "free" if you enjoy the taste of burnt regret.
I can buy an entire orange tree for that in some states.
They'll come by every third day if the stars align and the front desk person isn't on their fifth smoke break.
Forty bucks a night to park in a garage where my car got a fresh door ding and a mysterious stain I'm choosing not to identify.
The valet lost my keys for 45 minutes and then acted like I was the problem.
Sir, I just want to drive my Corolla out of this concrete hellscape.
The check-in process is now a tablet that asks you to rate your stay before you've even seen the room.
I gave it two stars out of spite and it asked me to confirm my email for a "special offer." The special offer was 10% off my next stay.
Which is somehow more expensive than the last time I looked.
Hotels have figured out that we're trapped.
They know we're not going to sleep in our car in the parking lot they're already charging us for.
So they've turned the entire experience into a game of financial whack-a-mole where the mole always wins and you always leave feeling like you just paid for a stranger to insult you in a nice accent.
Final Thoughts
Clean sheets, a working shower, and the ability to exist without being charged for it.