Miserable Pleasures by Hilton
Consider the miserable pleasures of a hotel breakfast: green bananas, stale bagels, cereal dispensers crushing Lucky Charms to powder even as they’re dispensed. But free coffee is free coffee, and there’s someone to tell when it runs out. Yogurt cups on beds of ice feel almost gourmet, as do hardboiled eggs in a plastic-lidded box (so you can see the slimy orbs nestling inside). Eggo-era children learn Zen and the lost art of waffle making. In a National Air and Space denim, grandpa concocts an oatmeal potion of chocolate chips, almonds, craisins, and maple syrup. All messy buns and sweatpants, it’s the Ithaca College women’s lacrosse team in gold and gray, dreading a windy February matchup with the University of Scranton on the road in Rochester for regional tournament glory. Canada geese honk faintly through the automatic doors as they coast onto Lake Ontario. Verily, verily, I say unto you that I actually saw a little girl hug a stranger, mistaking her for an aunt, to the non-aunt’s absolute delight. Perhaps, while a teen wearing noise-canceling headphones sheepishly slurps purple milk from his bowl, a fifty-something redhead in heatless curls will arrive just before the buffet closes, already wearing a black tube skirt and high heels for her evening plans, with a man whose entire demeanor instead says business trip. What are we to do other than take what is offered, no matter our finances, so we can have something to be grateful for and complain about for the rest of the weekend? Kibbutz, commune, twenty-first-century mess hall—this place has it all: guts, drudgery, family drama, and even pats of low-sugar apricot jam.
