Singapore check-in

The door closed behind me, and I looked around my silent hotel room, taking it all in. Plastic windows, air-conditioning unit, walls of cream and white, veneered furniture. Idly, I picked up an information leaflet from the bedside table and read the introductory paragraph.
‘A warm welcome to Singapore’s premier business hotel located centrally in The Downtown Core. From the moment that you arrive, a pleasant and relaxing stay is ensured. Our helpful and friendly staff will provide you with a most enjoyable check-in experience. Every room is complete with cable TV and en-suite.’

I skipped back to the part about the check-in experience. I can’t say that the check-in was enjoyable. It wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t even an ‘experience’ really. I just showed my passport, and they gave me a room key.

The TV in the room hung on an aluminium cradle from the wall at head-height. There was no reception. I flipped around using the remote for a while, but the result was 99 channels of white noise.

I realised that I would have to make a call to reception to report the fault. In situations like this, I often rehearse the conversation in my head beforehand, playing both parts, to ensure that no leftfield question from my interlocutor will leave me without an answer. For example:
The Mountjoy Hotel. How my I help you?
My name is Richard Parkes. I am in Room 106. My TV isn’t working. It will switch on, but there’s no reception.
Very well sir. I shall send someone up to take a look. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Well… also, the brochure promised an enjoyable check-in experience, but it was actually a very normal check-in experience. There was nothing enjoyable about it.
Enjoyment, like happiness, is subjective. When were you ever truly happy?

Foxed by this line of questioning from my own subconscious, I had to think for a moment. Suddenly, as real as if it were playing on Youtube in front of me, an image formed in my mind of myself, aged 7, leaning back upon a horizontal stick, suspended from a rope attached to the high branch of a gnarled oak tree. The rope was taut, creating a promising hypotenuse with which I could swing over the sparking canal at the bottom of the bank. I edged even further back until I was forced to my tip-toes, and the rope willed me to submit to its intended trajectory. Unable to hold out any longer, I lifted my plimsolls and rushed at enormous speed towards the water beneath. Fairly skimming the surface, and screaming as I flew, I reached up towards the vernal sun, froze for a moment in suspended animation, and then back, back to the water, back to the bank, back to my tip-toes on the muddy shore. Heart-beating, throat raw from screaming, and out of breath: That. That was happiness.

I sat down near the head of the bed, my hand poised ready to snatch the telephone and dial. But then I reflected: that is not a normal answer. If the hotel receptionist asks me when I was happiest, I can’t go in to the details of a once-forgotten rope-swing. That would not be the answer of an educated professional. The correct answer would be the birth of my son, or my wedding day.

Satisfied that I had fully explored the avenues of possible conversation, and feeling more confident, I picked up the handset and hit the zero key.
‘Reception.’
‘Hello… I’m… Room 106… The telly doesn’t work.’
‘Okay.’
The receptionist hung up, leaving only a sustained binary tone in my ear. I continued to hold the phone to my ear, and into the dead receiver, I mouthed the words over and over again: ‘On my wedding day… On my wedding day…On my wedding day…’