Story time. Every once in a while, our travel path leads us away from our typical Airbnb routine and back through the lobby of a hotel. Last month I had a solo trip for work. Jay would be at home on toddler duty and I would jet off for a few days of professional development and, more importantly, a few kid-free nights of room service and a king size bed.

The event coordinator had recommended the nearby Westin, and I had happily obliged. In their sprawling brand taxonomy, Marriott classifies the Westin under their “Distinctive Premium” division, and I set my expectations accordingly.

The lobby looked the part. Sky high ceilings, an attached Starbucks, and a fleet of shiny elevators. But when I got to my actual room, it didn’t take long to find the cracks that had been papered over. As the sun set, I opened my door to find a dated, dimly lit interior. In attempts to brighten it up, I discovered that the corner floor lamp had been left off for a good reason: it gave off a horrible neon light, which I immediately turned back off. Exhausted from the travel day, I tried to take a long, post-flight shower, but I quickly discovered that the bathroom had no ventilation to speak of. I remember thinking, “Well that can’t be a good long term strategy.”

When I went to order room service for dinner, I discovered that the room had two phones, but neither could actually make a call, despite repeated attempts to unplug and replug in every attached cord. Given my wet hair and pj status, I attempted to connect to the room service line with my cell phone by calling the hotel’s number advertised on the guide book they had set out, but was connected instead to a call center, who told me to call the very number I had used to call them. Finally, hunger drove me back into real clothes and down to the lobby. The folks at the front desk were kind and professional, but the food that arrived at my door an hour later was comically overpriced and soggy.

As I went to crawl into bed that night, I tried to decide which one I wanted to sleep in: the one closer to the startling heater that jolted awake every thirty or forty minutes or the one closer to the mini refrigerator’s incessant hum. (I’d been asked at the front desk whether I really needed the king room I had booked or would I be fine with two queens, to which my midwestern don’t-make-waves instincts immediately said, “Of course, of course, whatever works best for you!”)

I put one knee on the queen closer to the heater and the whole apparatus groaned with such a startling squawk, that I jumped back and left it in peace. The refrigerator bed it would be. As I tried to find sleep, I didn’t feel the serene, responsibility-free bliss I had anticipated when I booked the trip. I felt homesick. I missed my kid. I missed my husband. And I missed my bed, which is located in the perfect spot: far away from any refrigerator.