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May 20, 2024

Unintended Consequences

THE ORIGINAL MCDONALD’S, DES PLAINES
THE ORIGINAL MCDONALD’S, DES PLAINES, ILLINOIS 1956

The problem with minimum wage laws is that they raise a slew of unintended consequences, and they pretty much never work the way we all would hope.

For example, if you raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour, then the guys who supervise the workers will need to get a raise to $30 an hour. The trucking companies that deliver supplies to McDonald’s will need to raise their prices to cover raises for all of their drivers who must be paid more, and the franchise owner – the person who takes all the risks of having his own business – will have to get by with fewer drivers to do the same amount of work.

Many fast-food places have put in self-serve kiosks so they can lay off the people the minimum wage law was supposed to help. All of which means that a bunch of those people with newly increased pay will soon be out of work altogether.

Part of the problem is that being a fast-food worker was never meant to be a full-time life career. It was generally a part-time job for kids putting themselves through school and making a little cash on the side. It hopefully taught them about dealing with customers, providing a needed service on a schedule that didn’t interfere with their school work, and answering to a boss.

With the new minimum wage laws, people are trying to stretch those $20 an hour after-school jobs into full-time careers – complete with sick leave and vacation time – aimed at supporting their families. Even after the employees get a $20 an hour wage, they soon find that the attempt to raise their salary set off a chain reaction that raises the cost of everything they buy.

Last week we stopped by a McDonald’s, there were just a handful of tables at which to sit, and there was not one employee who even looked younger than 50. We didn’t want to use the kiosks, and the workers were so busy dishing out burgers to motorists that it took a while to get somebody to actually come to the counter.

Frankly, the newly mandated fast-food wage doesn’t work. If you don’t believe me, read a little Adam Smith or perhaps Milton Friedman. In the meantime, consider the $5.19 cost of a Big Mac, which has now become kind of a medium Mac as McDonald’s attempts to hold down costs by giving folks less meat for their money.

At the end of the day, most of those workers at McDonald’s with their new higher wages will not be able to afford to take their families for a night out at McDonald’s.

That’s not rocket science – it’s Econ 101.

– George Lee Cunningham

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May 6, 2024

WET, COLD AND MISERABLE

SAFELITE OFFICE ALTAMONTE SPRINGS
SAFELITE OFFICE ALTAMONTE SPRINGS

Winter was drawing to an end, and spring was right around the corner. We were driving from California to Florida – on smooth roads and rough –  dodging big rigs, pot holes, and road debris. We love road trips, and those grey and chilly days in February and March are the perfect time for us to pack up and head across country.

But then, a couple of days into the trip, we heard a small ping as we sped east on Interstate 10. When we pulled over later that day, we discovered we had been hit by flying debris – probably a pebble or other object picked up by a big rig and flung into the air. It was just a tiny chip, but enough to notice.

By the next day, the tiny chip had grown into a small but noticeable crack. Day-by-day we watched the crack slowly expand across the corner of our windshield as we traveled east. By the time we made Florida, the small chip had expanded into a large circular crack across the right-side of our windshield.

It would have to be replaced before we headed back to California, so we went to the Safelite windshield repair store in Altamonte Springs to get a new windshield. In the Safelite commercials, people get a crack in their windshield on the way to their kid’s Little League game. By the fifth inning, there is a Safelite van in the parking lot, and before they break out the soda and snacks at the end of the game, wham – they’ve got a brand-spanking new windshield.

Maybe that’s how it works in the major metropolitan areas, but in Altamonte Springs, Florida, not so much. Turns out we had to make an appointment 24 hours in advance to get our windshield replaced. So that’s what we did. A half-hour visit to make our appointment, and then we got the windshield fixed in three hours the following day. All good. It was the day FOLLOWING that day that the real trouble began.

We left for California around 11 a.m., traveling across country to Interstate 95, but the minute we got up to cruising speed we heard an annoying, loud whistling sound. It seemed to be coming from around the new windshield. Obviously, we had a small leak around the windshield, but we were already off to a late start, and we had hotel reservations in Tallahassee for that evening, so we pressed on.

That whistling sound was going to drive us nuts all the way across country, we thought, but we’d just live with it for the seven or eight days our trip would take. The second day out, after a long drive to Walker, Louisiana, we fell into bed exhausted. That’s when the nightmare really began. On a very rainy morning following an even rainier night, Carmela opened the door to our truck to find the inside was flooded. The cup holders were filled to the brim and spilling over, the seats were soaking wet, the floor was a big puddle, and the rain was still pouring in from all around the windshield.

The whistling sound had been annoying. What happened next was a calamity. We pulled the truck under the shelter of the hotel entrance, where we dried out the front seats and floor as best we could. Then we plotted our next move.

It was Sunday in Walker, Louisiana, and Safelite was closed. We decided to try to patch the leak and move on – not really wanting to sit around in Walker, Louisiana any longer.

As luck would have it, there was a Walmart just a few traffic lights away from our hotel. We drove over, and Carmela ran in to buy some heavy-duty tape for the edges of the windshield and a tarp that we could drape over the windshield if the tape didn’t work. I drove around to find a sheltered spot out of the rain while I waited for her.

As I drove around looking for a place to hold up, I found that if I drove at least 25 or 30 miles-per-hour, the leak slowed down to almost nothing. If I drove slower, the deluge returned. Good to know.

The problem was, we were just east of Baton Rouge, and Baton Rouge is always a traffic nightmare. We couldn’t really count on keeping up our speed. Carmela bought the tape and the biggest tarp I’ve ever seen, and we returned to the hotel and parked beneath the sheltered spot at the entrance. We carefully taped up the windshield. By that time, the rain had slacked off a bit and we decided to drive west as fast as we could.

We pulled out, hit the freeway, and the tape immediately blew off the windshield and started making loud flapping noises as it banged on the roof. We pulled off at the first exit, removed all the tape, and made a run for it. The rain had slacked off to a drizzle and we were anxious to keep heading west. Checking the phone, we saw that the farther west we drove, the better the weather.

Unfortunately, before we could get through Baton Rouge and across the Mississippi River, the rain returned, the traffic slowed to a crawl, and our windshield began once again to pour rain down upon us. It wasn’t just the truck interior that was soaked. We were too.

RAINY DAY WOMAN
RAINY DAY WOMAN

We jumped off at the next exit, looking for a sheltered spot. The rain slacked off once again, and we were able to drive toward the river, keeping up our speed and making rolling stops at intersections when necessary.

We reached the bridge, got across it with little problem and sped toward better weather. By this time though, we were wet, cold, and had picked up some kind of a bug. We just wanted to get home. We got across the Sabine River into Texas, through Houston, and stayed in Luling, once known as the roughest town in Texas because of its rowdy cowboy days, but now known for it’s never-ending supply of ready-made, yet still hot, brisket sandwiches at the largest Buc-ee’s in the country. It was a dry and lovely night. The next day we drove through San Antonio, and all the way to Fort Stockton to spend the night. The rain had obviously slacked off and the forecast was for continued dry weather.

Unfortunately, despite the sunny forecast, when we got up the next morning in Fort Stockton it had rained overnight and our truck was once again flooded. We dried it out as much as possible and started driving. The original plan had been to visit friends in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico – but we both just wanted to be home. We told our friends we would have to skip our visit and drove like hell through the day and most of the night, which we finally spent in Buckeye, Arizona. We drove the rest of the way home the following day.

Our wet and soggy tale does have a happy ending. When we got home, we called the local Safelite office in Westminster, took the truck over and waited while they took the windshield out, cleaned up the shoddy work that was done in Florida, and replaced the windshield as guaranteed.

They were very professional, but we could overhear them complaining about what a terrible job the Altamonte Springs franchise had done. In less than two hours our new windshield was tightly sealed, and we were back on the road – although it was only across town to Huntington Beach.

We were still sick and whatever bug we encountered driving wet and cold across country lingered for weeks afterward. But it didn’t matter because Dorothy was right, of course, there’s no place like home.

THE BLACK EYE

BLACK EYED GEORGE
BLACK EYED GEORGE

Another strange thing that happened on our soggy trip across the U.S., was that on that rainy night in Louisiana, I fell into a deep sleep with my watch still on my wrist. I slept resting my face against my wrist and as I tossed and turned, and my watch gave me a black eye. My black eye continued to deepen and grow during our long trip home.

I looked like I had just lost a cage match in some martial arts fight or maybe I just smarted off to my wife one time to many times.

It was that kind of trip.

– George Lee Cunningham

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April 27, 2024

Deadman’s Curve

KINGSLEY AND JOANNE FIFE
KINGSLEY AND JOANNE FIFE — Photo by Carmela Cunningham

My buddy, Dr. Kingsley Fife, is 91 years old, hard-of-hearing, and happy in his skin.

I spent the night at Kingsley’s house in Pacific Palisades – a beautiful home high in the hills with a clear day’s view of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina beyond – while Carmela spent the night with Kingsley’s wife, Joanne, who was at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for a medical procedure.

Kingsley is a driving force with which to be reckoned. That night we drove on rain-slicked streets from UCLA to his house, he in his sleek Acura and me in my big, much wider, F-150 pickup.  He knew the shortcuts and was quick to turn here and cut-in-and-out there.

The final zig-zag stretch along Sunset was Kingsley at his best – slowing down for no one and cutting through the night like Bruce Wayne in his Batmobile. When we arrived at his home, I was just happy to be there and glad to have survived the trip.

“Hey Kingsley,” I said. “Didn’t we just drive around Deadman’s Curve back there a bit.

“Oh yeah,” he said, cool as a cucumber. “Deadman’s Curve.”

Deadman’s Curve has changed quite a bit since Jan and Dean sang about it in their famous 1964 song about a road race gone wrong. Many speeding drivers lost their lives to Deadman’s Curve back in the day, but it’s been much upgraded and improved since then.

But that doesn’t stop people from driving too fast and too recklessly along the stretch of highway – especially on rainy nights.

Some of them crash and die and some of them – like me – just tighten their seat belts, follow their buddy, and live to tell about it.

– George Lee Cunningham

If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor characterSometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

April 15, 2024

On The Road Again

HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS, BUCKEYE, ARIZONA

My wife and I love road trips.

Forget airplanes – hopscotching across the country from one big city to another in big aluminum tubes with people strapped down and packed inside like sardines.

On a cross-country trip we get to see the rest of America – the nation that is woefully unrepresented on the nightly news delivered via TV from a collection of self-important, college-educated scribes with little real-world experience. These are the folks who every evening come on the air to tell you what’s important and what’s not. Too bad they get it all so wrong about most of the country.

On a road trip, you get to see for yourself. You get to go as far as you like for as long as you like. You can start early and drive late into the night – or even all through the night if you want. You can take as many detours and get places as slow or as fast as you choose.

Of course, road trips also present a fair number of challenges. A trip across the United States by car will take many days. That means finding someplace to stay every evening. Our needs are pretty simple. We look for places that offer clean sheets, a clean place to shower, a comfortable bed, a microwave to heat up supper, and a mini-fridge for cold beverages. In short, a place to relax for the night at a reasonable price.

We don’t need a full-service luxury hotel with an on-site restaurant and bar, room service, convention facilities, valet parking, and exorbitant resort fees, including $20 extra a night for an internet connection. We’re looking for a “traveler’s hotel.”

Some of the brands that have traditionally met our needs include: Holiday Inn Express, Best Western Plus or Premiere, Hilton Home2 Suites, and Hilton Hampton Inns. Each one of these chains has its challenges – some are more expensive than others and some are not consistent in their offerings. Although the chains aren’t necessarily consistent across the country, we’ve identified the hotels that work for us. For the past 13 years, we traveled with Henry, the Wonder Dog, and so hotels that welcomed him were the only ones on our list.

But times have changed. We just got back from a cross-country trip, and after about 15 nights in 13 hotels, we’ve had some experiences that have put a few of our tried-and-trues on the “no way in Hell” list.

One is a Holiday Inn Express in Arizona and the other is a Hilton Home2 Suites in Florida.

The Holiday Inn Express in Buckeye, Arizona, was the most expensive hotel we stayed in during our trip – just over $300 for our 10-hour stay. The night desk clerk who checked us in at 11:30 p.m. was lovely, but in the room there was a cryptic note from the hotel general manager Debbie DeMarco.

Here’s a sample of her message:

  • Guest room thermostats are “motion activated.” Please come down to the front desks and let us know if you would like that adjusted.
  • Housekeeping service consists of a daily refresh every day and a full room clean every 5 days. For housekeeping service please ensure Do Not Disturb sign is not hanging on the door.
  • Our hotel offers a daily complimentary hot breakfast M-F 6:00am to 9:30am and Sat/Sun 6:30am to 9:30am.

Does that mean the hotel in the middle of the Arizona desert has chosen the temperature for my room and if I want it cooler or warmer I have to go ask somebody to adjust it for me? Yes, it does.

And what does “motion activated” mean? Does that mean if I lay down or sit quietly, the air conditioning or heating shuts down? Can I really not turn up the heat myself if I get cold around 3 a.m.? Or, if I’m too warm, does it mean I cannot adjust the heat without asking permission and getting assistance? Yes, again. That is what it means.

I’m not sure about “refreshing” the room every day and cleaning it every five days. What does that means exactly? I would like to know before I rent the room if I am at day one or day five of the cleaning cycle.

But, with all those frustrations, it was the “complimentary breakfast,” which really put this particular Holiday Inn Express at the top of the never-again list.

The entire Holiday Inn Express chain offers the same basic breakfast – not bad, but not necessarily what we would order at a restaurant. And let’s face it, Holiday Inn calls it complimentary, but we all pay for it in the price of the room. Personally, we wish they would lower the room price a few bucks and let us buy the breakfast we want somewhere else.

In Buckeye, we went down to breakfast, got some coffee and looked for some milk to put in it, but we couldn’t find any. We couldn’t find the breakfast attendant either. When we finally tracked her down, she was in the lobby, chatting to her friend at the front desk and clearly very irritated to be disturbed by a guest.

Carmela told her there was no milk and asked if the lady could bring some more out. “Nope,” the attendant replied. “There will be some more tomorrow morning,” she told us. Of course, by tomorrow morning, we would be 400 miles away. Clearly not the attendant’s problem.

We returned to the breakfast room. One of the guests decided he would like some pancakes from the automated pancake machine, but there was no batter to pour into the machine. We told him where to find the attendant – still by the front desk chatting with her chum.

On the guest’s prodding, the attendant reluctantly went and got some batter mix and put it next to the machine. A family with a couple kids came in, poured themselves bowls of cereal and looked around for the milk. “No milk,” the attendant growled. “You have to eat it dry.”

Carmela suggested, “why don’t you go to the store across the street and buy some milk?”

“Can’t leave my post,” the attendant replied from where she was again leaning on the front desk, again chatting with her friend, and still clearly irritated that she kept being interrupted by pesky hotel guests.

“Maybe you could get Door Dash to deliver it,” someone else suggested.

“Not my job,” she answered.

The question, of course, was why would she leave the self-serve cereal out if she knew there was no milk.

The remaining guests – mostly traveling business types, some families with kids – started talking about the hotel, the rooms, the $300 a-night price, and how they are never staying there again. Good job, breakfast lady.

The other hotel horror story was the Hilton Home2 Suites in Tallahassee, Florida. We’ve stayed there before, but things have truly gone downhill. We had reservations, but checking in meant standing in line with our bags for at least 20 minutes while the one clerk on duty dealt with a large and aggressive woman over what she thought should be a discounted rate for her room.

He seemed to be doing the best he could, but by the time he got to us, he was completely frazzled. Meanwhile, the line of guests waiting with their bags to check in had grown substantially longer. No other hotel staff were to be seen.

The room we had booked online was for one king-sized bed, with a king-sized bed room rate. But the clerk told us the hotel only has five king-sized beds, and we had to have two queen beds. OK, no problem, we said. What we got was two double beds shoved awkwardly into one side of the room and a musty smell in both the bedroom and the bathroom. The paint in the bathroom was peeling. There was mold in the shower, and the baseboards were cracked. The TV didn’t work. All of the ice machines at the hotel were either empty or broken.

The next morning, Carmela went down to get some coffee to bring back to the room. When she poured a little milk in it, it came out in a curdled glub. Meanwhile, people who had ordered cereal and poured curdled milk into it were literally spitting it out and loudly complaining.

The attendant responded by pointing out that the expiration date on the milk showed that it was still good and would be for several more days. No apology. No offer to get fresh milk. No realization that even though the expiration date hadn’t been reached, the milk had gone bad.

Definitely not a good look for the Hilton brand.

Those were the worst hotels this trip, but from coast to coast most of the hotels we stayed at have taken a hit. Hotels – like so many other businesses in the country – have been severely impacted. The extended economic shutdown plus new minimum wage laws have taken their toll. Hotels have cut back on their staffing and deferred basic upkeep and repairs to save money. At the same time, they’ve raised prices. As hotel guests, it does not make us happy, but we do understand that the financial model is not penciling out these days.

Most disappointing was that at most of the places, there wasn’t anybody in charge who could make an independent decision or make things run better.

At the Holiday Inn Express in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the water suddenly stopped working. We had already showered, but we had to use bottled water to brush our teeth. In the lobby, guests with soapy and wet hair, wanted to know how long it would be before they could rinse off. “No clue,” said the unconcerned gentleman at the counter. He said the water was off all over town, but when we met friends for breakfast at a restaurant down the block, the water was on, and no one at the restaurant had heard that there had been any problem with the water.

Bad things happen. Everybody understands that, but the man on the desk didn’t know what was going on, and he didn’t seem that interested in finding out. He just made up a lie to get people to go away and leave him alone. In a well-run hotel, the guests might have been offered an apology and a plan on where they might go to finish their showers.

My guess is the man at the desk was not the man in charge. In fact, across the country the hotels we stayed at seemed to have nobody who was authorized to make a decision – such as awarding a discount, promising to find a solution, or even giving a sincere apology. The result is a plethora of hotels with toilets that don’t fully flush, TVs that don’t work, missing light bulbs, moldy and broken showers, and a general take-it-or-leave-it-attitude.

For the most part, it is sadder than it is infuriating.

It’s important to note that along the way we met folks, old and young, in some of those same establishments who were doing the best they could in very trying circumstances. They wanted to be helpful, they wanted to make the hotel guests feel comfortable and welcome.

Even if they were short-staffed and out of ice, they were doing their best, and we appreciated it.

TWO OUTSTANDING EXCEPTIONS

GULF OF MEXICO VIEW IN THE EARLY EVENING FROM PENSACOLA BEACH HOTEL ROOM

In our Hotel Hell trip, there were two outstanding exceptions – the kind of exceptions that we hesitate to mention because we don’t really want the word to get out and for them to be all booked up when we show up again.

One is the Holiday Inn Express in Pensacola Beach, Florida. It has one of the best views of the Gulf of Mexico on what is known as the Florida Panhandle – that section of the state that extends west from the Florida peninsula.

In the panhandle, the beaches are facing south and are more accessible to visitors from Alabama than they are to most folks in Florida – which has provided the region with the nickname the “Redneck Riviera.”

We were there during the stormy winter months, which we love, yet the waters of the gulf were still warm enough for a quick dip and a walk along the beach. The prices go up as the weather gets warmer, but this is still a deal and a lovely place to spend a few days.

The other hotel of note is The Crystal Bay, a vintage hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida with an interesting past. Marilyn Monroe stayed there in the day and so did Babe Ruth, among others. Nowadays it is surrounded by a lot more traffic and commercial developments, but it retains the kind of ambiance that makes it one of our favorites.

The rooms are clean, comfortable and have the old-world charm that screams Florida. The rates are reasonable, the staff is extremely friendly, and the complimentary breakfast buffet is one of the best in our experience.

But please, let that be our little secret. We don’t want too many people to learn about it and horn in on our good time.

– George Lee Cunningham

 If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.