Rage against the Machines, Part Three
"Peek-a-boo?!? A FUCKING Peek-a-boo window?!?"
I was pacing our "deluxe king suite" at the MGM Detroit like a caged tiger while D. blissfully ironed away. He was in his happy place. Me, I just wanted to get the fuck out of that room and away from the corresponding feelings of irritation, embarrassment and humiliation it evoked.
"Peek-a-boo? Really?!? Peek-a-boo?"
Unless one counts D.'s attempts to force his way into the parking garage of an abandoned building my GPS erroneously claimed was the MGM Grand Casino and Hotel, the remainder of my trip between Dulles and our hotel in Detroit was relatively uneventful. Sure, we briefly risked a horrible death while driving the wrong way down a one-way street because our travel directions deadended in a burnt out husk from Detroit's past, but I am of the opinion that, when you are white, you risk your life simply by visiting the 3-1-3. Forgoing valet parking, we ended up having to walk the entire length of the building to get to the guest suites, but, once there, we were met with accommodating hotel employees, elaborate water features and a cozy, guest-only fire lounge. Our room was even more beautifully designed with a plush, pillow-top bed, an oversized marble shower and a color scheme that danced precariously between dark woods and hot pinks.
Our first priority, of course, was falling into the downy embrace of the bed. D. helped himself to the complimentary chocolates while I grabbed the remote for our large plasma television, which I suppose was yet another of many mistakes I made that day.
Upon powering up, the TV took you to a guide screen featuring a woman of comfortably unidentifiable ethnicity talking you through the features of her system. In addition to a handful of menu items, the text "At any point press GUIDE button to return to this screen" was prominently displayed. So, I checked out a random channel then, finding the signal quality subpar, pressed GUIDE. The TV immediately switched to channel 125, which was irritatingly composed of nothing but static. At that point, I tried switching to a different channel. No matter what numbers were keyed in, the TV remained on channel 125. I pressed the channel + and - buttons, but the TV remained on channel 125. I pressed the MENU button, but the television remained on channel 125.
Unable to do anything else, I pressed power to turn it off. Upon a second press, the TV returned to the initial guide screen. Selecting the onscreen menu option that allowed one to see the current listing of all channels and corresponding programming (you know, the "guide"), I scanned through the list, settled on something then switched to that channel. Once there, I wanted to return to the full channel listing. The first time, I had pressed the seemingly appropriately named GUIDE button only to be shunted to the deadend that is channel 125, so this time I gave MENU a shot.
And still ended up on channel 125.
With its endless static.
Finding the TV once more unresponsive, I powered off and then back on, returning to the initial menu screen. I continued in this vein a few more times, trying other variations but always ending up at that loathsome channel 125 if I attempted anything other than switching to a channel number and then only using the channel + and - buttons from that point on. Finally, I powered the thing off and threw down the remote in disgust. Clearly, this was not my day to interface with the machine world. D. gave it a couple more tries while I wandered off into the bathroom, which is where my obsession truly began.
Running along the entire length of the wall behind our double sink was the expected smooth expanse of bathroom mirror. What was not expected, however, was the odd wooden picture frame cut into the center of it, a frame which appeared to contain a significantly darker, mirrored surface. Odder still, somewhere behind the pane of reflective glass was a small yellow LED, indicative of a camera or television screen. I was intrigued. So was D. So we stood examining and probing the device for an extended length of time. We felt around the periphery of the wood frame for buttons, but found none. We searched around the cleanly designed bathroom counter and under-counter towel storage for any sort of device or remote. We finally resorted to tapping on the screen like primitive man confronted by the inconceivably smooth black surface of a monolith. In short, we looked like morons. D. tilted the bottom edge of the heavy wood frame from the wall and I peered behind it at a plethora of wiring, including tri-colored RCA jacks that clearly implied some manner of video (as well as audio) signal.
To top it all off, there was a BOSE speaker embedded in the ceiling of our bathroom with no apparent connection to any other device. We confirmed this by sending one man to stand in the bathroom while the other tried operating first the television, then the room's courtesy MP3 player, then the clock-radio with built in CD player. I reasoned that the speaker *must* be connected to the mirror somehow. We just didn't know how to operate it.
But there were plenty of other things to boggle the mind in that room, like, say, the lack of a closet. Or rather, there was what appeared to be a locked closet with some odd brass latches at the top. D. and I each tried the doors and found them unyielding. When D. tried to brute force them open, I stopped him for fear it was sealed with some sort of security device that, like the removal of any individual item from the minibar, would alert the front desk electronically the moment the connection was broken. We stood in the doorway to the bathroom and examined the placement of the locked closet doors relative to the shower wall, speculating that, based on the small amount of space available, it was some sort of plumbing access.
This of course left D. with quite the conundrum because there was neither iron nor ironing board in the room. It was one thing to not have a place to hang your shirts (indeed, we had only a single hanger with a bathrobe on it in our luxurious bathroom); it's another to have to wear something wrinkled to Wolfgang Puck's overpriced bar & grill. Finally seeing this as a valid reason to contact the front desk, I took advantage of the opportunity to get some much needed answers to the questions that were haunting me. I asked the woman if the room had an iron.
She said she didn't think so.
I asked if one could be sent up.
She said yes.
Then I delicately broached the topic of the bathroom mirror.
"Can you tell me what this thing in my bathroom is? There's like this wooden frame with a mirror inside the bathroom mirror. And it has a light on it. It looks like it's something electronic but we can't figure out how to turn it on."
"I'm sorry?"
What followed was a painful attempt to describe what I was seeing to a woman who had either never been in one of the hotel suites herself or was an outright moron. I suppose the two aren't mutually exclusive. I didn't see how I could have been more clear - there was a mirror in the bathroom, set within that was a smaller wooden frame with a darker mirrored surface, behind that surface you could see a light.
The resulting silence was even more awkward than my fumbling attempts at description. She sounded like she might have been conferring with someone else at the reception desk. Finally, she came back and told me:
"That's a peek-a-boo window."
My jaw dropped as I looked at D.
"A wh-what?"
"A peek-a-boo window. It's so if your wife... or significant other, is showering you can see their outline. And you can talk."
"A peek-a-boo window?"
"Yeah."
"Ummm... okay... thanks?"
As we waited for housekeeping to arrive with the iron, I wandered back into the bathroom, three or four or a hundred times, trying to suss out how in the fuck this so-called "peek-a-boo" mirror could work. First of all, the absurdly huge marble shower featured ceiling-high frosted glass windows with minimal lighting within the shower itself, so I was skeptical at the degree of silhouette visible unless someone leaves the door wide open while showering. Secondly, the "peek-a-boo" mirror was located in the middle of a gigantic bathroom mirror that ran the entire length of the wall from counter-to-ceiling. If I truly wanted to watch someone shower, wouldn't the mirror suffice? What's more, the placement of the "peek-a-boo" window, dead-center as it was in the mirrored wall, was such that, if anything, it impeded an otherwise perfect view of the shower behind you. You know, by just looking in the mirror.
And of course there was still the small issue of the light, the electrical wiring and the BOSE speaker. We started to wonder if somehow it was shower-activated, but neither of us was willing to hop in there with our clothes on and risk saturation from one of the multiple showerheads.
Rather than alleviate my preoccupation, the woman at the front desk's insane answer only further fueled my obsession. I had to understand this peek-a-boo window. How did it work? Why did it exist? Where did it come from? Who would come up with such an absurd name? Worse yet, my obsession now had a soundtrack courtesy of Siouxsie & the Banshees.
Twenty to forty minutes later, a knock at our door revealed a hotel employee with an iron in one hand and a small container for filling it with water in the other. I thanked him and said, "Can I ask you a question before you go? So, there's this thing in the bathroom, set into the mirror. Can you tell me what it is?"
He walked in, took one glance and said, "oh, that's a television screen."
...
It turns out that we were simply missing the remote for the small plasma screen set into our bathroom mirror. He searched around to no avail. He grabbed the television remote from the larger plasma in the bedroom and gave it a shot. I was hardly surprised when that failed to work; after all, it barely worked on the TV for which it was designed. When he suggested that he could send up someone from maintenance, I thanked him but pooh-poohed the idea; after all, we were there for just one night and our goal wasn't to spend it watching television on the toilet. I had my answer. I might just be able to sleep.
"Before you leave, can I ask you one more thing? Is there a closet in this room? Because I tried these doors but couldn't get them open."
He then walked directly to the doors D. and I had both tugged furiously on and nonchalantly popped them open. It turns out the latch mechanism at the top was nothing more than a connection that automatically turned on the closet light. It maybe stuck a little, but not enough to justify our failure to open the thing. I looked inside and saw both an ironing board and an iron. Feeling the flush rise to my face, I stammered, "So there was an iron in the room... They, uhh, told me there wasn't."
"Yeah, but you know, you can use that iron or you can use this one that I brought. Whichever you want."
I had the feeling he was treating me like a crazy person. I had called down for an iron even though the room already had one because I had lacked the basic problem-solving abilities required to open a closet door. Then I had required his help to identify a television. He was understandably backing his way slowly to the door. But I wasn't the crazy person. The crazy person was the one who told me that fucking plasma television screen was something called a "peek-a-boo window" that I could use to watch my honey in the shower. The crazy person was the one who told me that there wasn't an iron in the room when every deluxe suite clearly contained an ironing board and iron safely locked away behind a closet door that could only be opened by the one, true king. The crazy person is the woman who made me look like a crazy person.
Then, like a crazy person, I dwelled on these facts for the remainder of our evening.
At least until D.'s shirt was smooth enough that we could go get blotto.
I was pacing our "deluxe king suite" at the MGM Detroit like a caged tiger while D. blissfully ironed away. He was in his happy place. Me, I just wanted to get the fuck out of that room and away from the corresponding feelings of irritation, embarrassment and humiliation it evoked.
"Peek-a-boo? Really?!? Peek-a-boo?"
Unless one counts D.'s attempts to force his way into the parking garage of an abandoned building my GPS erroneously claimed was the MGM Grand Casino and Hotel, the remainder of my trip between Dulles and our hotel in Detroit was relatively uneventful. Sure, we briefly risked a horrible death while driving the wrong way down a one-way street because our travel directions deadended in a burnt out husk from Detroit's past, but I am of the opinion that, when you are white, you risk your life simply by visiting the 3-1-3. Forgoing valet parking, we ended up having to walk the entire length of the building to get to the guest suites, but, once there, we were met with accommodating hotel employees, elaborate water features and a cozy, guest-only fire lounge. Our room was even more beautifully designed with a plush, pillow-top bed, an oversized marble shower and a color scheme that danced precariously between dark woods and hot pinks.
Our first priority, of course, was falling into the downy embrace of the bed. D. helped himself to the complimentary chocolates while I grabbed the remote for our large plasma television, which I suppose was yet another of many mistakes I made that day.
Upon powering up, the TV took you to a guide screen featuring a woman of comfortably unidentifiable ethnicity talking you through the features of her system. In addition to a handful of menu items, the text "At any point press GUIDE button to return to this screen" was prominently displayed. So, I checked out a random channel then, finding the signal quality subpar, pressed GUIDE. The TV immediately switched to channel 125, which was irritatingly composed of nothing but static. At that point, I tried switching to a different channel. No matter what numbers were keyed in, the TV remained on channel 125. I pressed the channel + and - buttons, but the TV remained on channel 125. I pressed the MENU button, but the television remained on channel 125.
Unable to do anything else, I pressed power to turn it off. Upon a second press, the TV returned to the initial guide screen. Selecting the onscreen menu option that allowed one to see the current listing of all channels and corresponding programming (you know, the "guide"), I scanned through the list, settled on something then switched to that channel. Once there, I wanted to return to the full channel listing. The first time, I had pressed the seemingly appropriately named GUIDE button only to be shunted to the deadend that is channel 125, so this time I gave MENU a shot.
And still ended up on channel 125.
With its endless static.
Finding the TV once more unresponsive, I powered off and then back on, returning to the initial menu screen. I continued in this vein a few more times, trying other variations but always ending up at that loathsome channel 125 if I attempted anything other than switching to a channel number and then only using the channel + and - buttons from that point on. Finally, I powered the thing off and threw down the remote in disgust. Clearly, this was not my day to interface with the machine world. D. gave it a couple more tries while I wandered off into the bathroom, which is where my obsession truly began.
Running along the entire length of the wall behind our double sink was the expected smooth expanse of bathroom mirror. What was not expected, however, was the odd wooden picture frame cut into the center of it, a frame which appeared to contain a significantly darker, mirrored surface. Odder still, somewhere behind the pane of reflective glass was a small yellow LED, indicative of a camera or television screen. I was intrigued. So was D. So we stood examining and probing the device for an extended length of time. We felt around the periphery of the wood frame for buttons, but found none. We searched around the cleanly designed bathroom counter and under-counter towel storage for any sort of device or remote. We finally resorted to tapping on the screen like primitive man confronted by the inconceivably smooth black surface of a monolith. In short, we looked like morons. D. tilted the bottom edge of the heavy wood frame from the wall and I peered behind it at a plethora of wiring, including tri-colored RCA jacks that clearly implied some manner of video (as well as audio) signal.
To top it all off, there was a BOSE speaker embedded in the ceiling of our bathroom with no apparent connection to any other device. We confirmed this by sending one man to stand in the bathroom while the other tried operating first the television, then the room's courtesy MP3 player, then the clock-radio with built in CD player. I reasoned that the speaker *must* be connected to the mirror somehow. We just didn't know how to operate it.
But there were plenty of other things to boggle the mind in that room, like, say, the lack of a closet. Or rather, there was what appeared to be a locked closet with some odd brass latches at the top. D. and I each tried the doors and found them unyielding. When D. tried to brute force them open, I stopped him for fear it was sealed with some sort of security device that, like the removal of any individual item from the minibar, would alert the front desk electronically the moment the connection was broken. We stood in the doorway to the bathroom and examined the placement of the locked closet doors relative to the shower wall, speculating that, based on the small amount of space available, it was some sort of plumbing access.
This of course left D. with quite the conundrum because there was neither iron nor ironing board in the room. It was one thing to not have a place to hang your shirts (indeed, we had only a single hanger with a bathrobe on it in our luxurious bathroom); it's another to have to wear something wrinkled to Wolfgang Puck's overpriced bar & grill. Finally seeing this as a valid reason to contact the front desk, I took advantage of the opportunity to get some much needed answers to the questions that were haunting me. I asked the woman if the room had an iron.
She said she didn't think so.
I asked if one could be sent up.
She said yes.
Then I delicately broached the topic of the bathroom mirror.
"Can you tell me what this thing in my bathroom is? There's like this wooden frame with a mirror inside the bathroom mirror. And it has a light on it. It looks like it's something electronic but we can't figure out how to turn it on."
"I'm sorry?"
What followed was a painful attempt to describe what I was seeing to a woman who had either never been in one of the hotel suites herself or was an outright moron. I suppose the two aren't mutually exclusive. I didn't see how I could have been more clear - there was a mirror in the bathroom, set within that was a smaller wooden frame with a darker mirrored surface, behind that surface you could see a light.
The resulting silence was even more awkward than my fumbling attempts at description. She sounded like she might have been conferring with someone else at the reception desk. Finally, she came back and told me:
"That's a peek-a-boo window."
My jaw dropped as I looked at D.
"A wh-what?"
"A peek-a-boo window. It's so if your wife... or significant other, is showering you can see their outline. And you can talk."
"A peek-a-boo window?"
"Yeah."
"Ummm... okay... thanks?"
As we waited for housekeeping to arrive with the iron, I wandered back into the bathroom, three or four or a hundred times, trying to suss out how in the fuck this so-called "peek-a-boo" mirror could work. First of all, the absurdly huge marble shower featured ceiling-high frosted glass windows with minimal lighting within the shower itself, so I was skeptical at the degree of silhouette visible unless someone leaves the door wide open while showering. Secondly, the "peek-a-boo" mirror was located in the middle of a gigantic bathroom mirror that ran the entire length of the wall from counter-to-ceiling. If I truly wanted to watch someone shower, wouldn't the mirror suffice? What's more, the placement of the "peek-a-boo" window, dead-center as it was in the mirrored wall, was such that, if anything, it impeded an otherwise perfect view of the shower behind you. You know, by just looking in the mirror.
And of course there was still the small issue of the light, the electrical wiring and the BOSE speaker. We started to wonder if somehow it was shower-activated, but neither of us was willing to hop in there with our clothes on and risk saturation from one of the multiple showerheads.
Rather than alleviate my preoccupation, the woman at the front desk's insane answer only further fueled my obsession. I had to understand this peek-a-boo window. How did it work? Why did it exist? Where did it come from? Who would come up with such an absurd name? Worse yet, my obsession now had a soundtrack courtesy of Siouxsie & the Banshees.
Twenty to forty minutes later, a knock at our door revealed a hotel employee with an iron in one hand and a small container for filling it with water in the other. I thanked him and said, "Can I ask you a question before you go? So, there's this thing in the bathroom, set into the mirror. Can you tell me what it is?"
He walked in, took one glance and said, "oh, that's a television screen."
...
It turns out that we were simply missing the remote for the small plasma screen set into our bathroom mirror. He searched around to no avail. He grabbed the television remote from the larger plasma in the bedroom and gave it a shot. I was hardly surprised when that failed to work; after all, it barely worked on the TV for which it was designed. When he suggested that he could send up someone from maintenance, I thanked him but pooh-poohed the idea; after all, we were there for just one night and our goal wasn't to spend it watching television on the toilet. I had my answer. I might just be able to sleep.
"Before you leave, can I ask you one more thing? Is there a closet in this room? Because I tried these doors but couldn't get them open."
He then walked directly to the doors D. and I had both tugged furiously on and nonchalantly popped them open. It turns out the latch mechanism at the top was nothing more than a connection that automatically turned on the closet light. It maybe stuck a little, but not enough to justify our failure to open the thing. I looked inside and saw both an ironing board and an iron. Feeling the flush rise to my face, I stammered, "So there was an iron in the room... They, uhh, told me there wasn't."
"Yeah, but you know, you can use that iron or you can use this one that I brought. Whichever you want."
I had the feeling he was treating me like a crazy person. I had called down for an iron even though the room already had one because I had lacked the basic problem-solving abilities required to open a closet door. Then I had required his help to identify a television. He was understandably backing his way slowly to the door. But I wasn't the crazy person. The crazy person was the one who told me that fucking plasma television screen was something called a "peek-a-boo window" that I could use to watch my honey in the shower. The crazy person was the one who told me that there wasn't an iron in the room when every deluxe suite clearly contained an ironing board and iron safely locked away behind a closet door that could only be opened by the one, true king. The crazy person is the woman who made me look like a crazy person.
Then, like a crazy person, I dwelled on these facts for the remainder of our evening.
At least until D.'s shirt was smooth enough that we could go get blotto.