Durangosaurus went extinct when it ate everything
The last 24 hours shall henceforth be referred to as the period of ludicrous upgrades.

I arrived in St. Louis around 11:30, made it to the rental car lot just before midnight. I had previously requested a Standard Car when I made the reservation. They didn't have any, so they gave me what they did have. A Dodge Durango.

Here is a picture of a Dodge Durango.

The picture is not to scale. The Durango is approximately 5 thousand times larger than shown in the picture. It had three full rows of seats, as well as enough trunk space to store the state of Arkansas. Why anyone could possibly need this car as a personal vehicle is beyond me. I suspect it qualifies for Most Favored Nation Status.

But its midnight, and I'm really not interested in discussing why I really don't want the only tank (err... car) that they have left. So, I take the Durango, and try to back it out of the parking space without denting Mexico.

20 minutes later, I find myself in downtown St. Louis, and I pull into my hotel, the Embassy Suites. I like to stay in Hilton Hotels, because I get good perks off my HHonors program, and they usually don't have problems like "I'm sorry sir, we're all rooms with king or queen sized beds, and all the rooms we have left are smoking."

I pull into the hotel, the night manager checks me in, then says "Oh, I see they've upgraded you. Just keep walking." Confused by this, I asked for clarification. "You won't see the bed, just keep walking, its there."

I get to room 811, on the top floor, and sure enough, 811 is the Presidential Suite. As in, where the President would stay. Of course, not President Bush, he'd get confused by the elevator ("magic box goes up and down!"). But I digress.

This room was a mansion. It was larger than my apartment. My new three bedroom apartment. It contained a 15 seat banquet room with table and chandelier. A wet bar in the living room, with full size entertainment center. Two bathrooms, the first a half bath, with a shoe polisher (machine, not servant). I keep walking and find the bedroom. Out my window, possibly the best view of the St. Louis Arch possible. Right next to the window, a pants press. Then I notice the second bathroom. Or rather, I notice the steam room attached to it. Hot rocks and everything. The bathroom came equipped with a giant tub, a luxury toilet, and a separate bidet.

Now admittedly, I'm not living in luxury, by anyones terms, but I'd never really seen a bidet, except once at the Biltmore House on a school field trip. The bidet is described here: What Is a Bidet?

I played with it for a while, but I didn't actually use it. That thing had some water pressure, and I wasn't sure I wanted that much water pressure anywhere near my backside.

Woke up at 7, got lost, found the customer building, did my meeting, drove to the airport, dropped off the mutant school bus, ran onto the noon flight right before they closed the airplane door (I was originally on the 8 PM flight), and got back to O'Hare just to have them park us on the runway for 30 minutes while they waited for our gate to open. I swear, that airport has no idea how to do things. I could see at least 15 open gates during the entire wait.