Gripe for the Day

The door to warmth from the cage of endless winter swung open today, just long enough for the inmates to marvel at the sight of greenery and feel the tickle of the afternoon sun outside when — slam. Shut again. Frost warning again tonight. This is why tomato planting is contraindicated even in early May, here in northern Illinois.

Am I complaining about the weather? No, just griping. With a complaint, you have some hope of redress. Griping is for griping’s sake.

Speaking of griping — complaining, actually — it took a month, but my letter to Best Western, “the world’s largest hotel chain,” finally resulted in a reply (see April 5 for details about our last day at the Best Western near Busch Gardens). It was a suitably apologetic letter, which is good, but it also included $100 gift card, worth about a night’s stay somewhere in the chain, which is much better.

So I am mollified. I’m removing them from the Dees Hotel Do Not Stay list. Back up to neutral for BW, since in fact I hadn’t given the chain much thought until I found the location in Tampa to be convenient to our purposes. I’m certain we’ll be able to use the card sometime before a year is up. A year because, if you read the back of the gift card, you’ll note that “after 12 months a monthly service fee will apply.” My italics.

Here’s some griping, then. A service fee on a gift card? This isn’t specific to BW, since certain other retailers have annoyed their customers with the same bad idea. It’s greedy, it’s grasping, it’s gratuitous, to alliterate on the matter. “We need to make the gift cards a revenue center!” management thinks. Boneheads.