$5 for Water, and Other Harrowing Tales

I've just arrived at the Amtrak Station in Solano Beach, CA, which is actually a cute little train station. I am early and on my own, both things are rarities. Currently Kevin is trying to hold onto his video camera as he rides shotgun with a pilot doing daredevil stunts in an open cockpit plane over the Pacific. I've come down to San Diego to visit my best friend from college, and her husband, two kids, two dogs and a cat.

Although I ate some sort of Raw food "quiche" concoction for lunch before boarding the train, I am starving. As I alighted on the platform, I spotted the Coke machine and started salivating. Regrettably I do drink Diet Coke all the time, although not quite as frequently as I used to. But after getting off the train, I splurged for the full-on High Fructose Corn Syrup real thing baby. What is it about traveling that opens up the junk food crave? On going through his receipts while doing his 2010 taxes, Kevin marveled over the amount spent on Red Bull and Candy. That's the driving along the interstate thing -- I get sleepy when driving, hence the Red Bull (stop judging you New York health nuts, how many of you have criss-crossed America lately and tried to subsist only on water and 'healthy' snacks like, oh, gas station-fresh fruit?). Candy, well, candy is part of the tradition. It was a part of every break on the road during our childhood, and, no, my sister and I are not obese. Maybe that's because our parents let us/made us play outside.

None of this, however, explains the exorbitant price of hotel mini-bar junk food. And that stuff is junk food -- I've yet to see a mini-bar stocked with peaches and pears. I take issue with the assertion by Randy Cohen, the former NY Times ethicist that it is unethical to avoid a mini-bar charge by re-stocking the bar yourself. Kevin, incredibly, is in league with Mr. Cohen. Personally, I feel it is unethical for the hotel to price things with such a crazy mark-up. The customer is nearly trapped. I abstained from the little $1.50 bottles of Poland Springs at the Westin in Copley Square, Boston, last month.


© 2011 bridget batch
Can you see that $5 price tag?

But Kevin had some Pringles because he was starving. They were $5 too. The bill listed them at $6.15, however, $1.15 in pernicious local taxes raping the visitors. Kevin didn't have much issue with his tiny 50 cent container of saturated fat being priced at a 500% markup but he howled over that tax. "WHHHHHHATTTT, that is SO ridiculous! It's almost 25%."

I told him he sounds like the tea partiers and greedy corporations. So businesses can handle ridiculous mark-ups on hotel charges as a business expense -- a tax-deductible business expense, but they can't deal with paying extra taxes in order to actually fund government programs that ultimately support them and and their success -- like education, research and infrastructure? Uh huh.

Regrettably, the Amtrak station is missing a snack machine. I am hungry and waiting for my friend. Damn, she actually doesn't eat junk food, keeping those daughters in line! No candy this time around. But she does drink...