http://norman.walsh.name/2007/02/02/expressCheckout 10 6 2007-02-02T05:29:21-08:00 $Date: 2007-02-02 15:58:13 -0500 (Fri, 02 Feb 2007) $ Norman Walsh 2007 Norman Walsh Proving it's possible to be too early. Faced with a 6:30am departure this morning and, consequently, the prospect of rising so early that it almost doesn't make any sense to go to bed, I decided to get a copy of my hotel bill yesterday evening. This, I figured, would save me the trouble of rousing some poor night clerk and struggling to get a bill out of him shortly after four in the morning. When I explained this to the clerk yesterday, he nodded sagely and smiled. Then he asked me if I'd like to simply check out and get a final bill. My first and immediate thought, I am not making this up, was “if I check out now, won't the reservation system think my room is available?” My second thought was along the lines of not being silly, the guy works for the hotel, I'm not the first person masochistic enough to have booked a 6:30am flight, he wouldn't have suggested the idea of it had that sort of consequence. Twice. At 10:00pm and 1:30am. Not simply people banging on my door, mind you, people with keys that opened my door. Sleep? What sleep? Every shuffling noise from the hallway flooded my system with adrenaline as my brainstem prepared to engage the “fight” branch of the fight-or-flight response. Maybe I really should have just stayed up. I'm so glad planes put me to sleep.