We got up at six so we could get to N.C. by 10 p.m. and have a couple of random stops along the way – the purpose of any road trip. We somehow managed to leave at the scheduled time. Everything was looking good. We were right on time.
Then we stopped off at a Dunkin Donuts to grab stuff for the road. There, Moldman sheepishly muttered, “Dustin, I think I left my wallet at your house.”
Back to the house we went.
After the false start, we actually made pretty good time. We saw various things on the road -- Tom Selleck's gun collection, a llama farm, and a rigor mortis raccoon come immediately to mind, although we assume there is no connection between them. We were well on-track to make it to The Sopranos. Now all we needed to find was a hotel that had HBO.
After an hour of calling every hotel in South Carolina, we realized that 1) nobody in the South has HBO, and 2) everyone in the South has Showtime. We couldn’t find a hotel with HBO to save our lives.
Then, finally, success. The Comfort Inn in Asheville, North Carolina did have HBO, as the clerk happily reported. Yes, he was sure. Yes, HBO, he was watching it right on the lobby TV.
Excellent, we thought, and made a reservation. A few hours later, we called again, under a different guise, to inquire again, just to make sure. A different clerk assured us that they did, in fact, have HBO.
So we get to the hotel at 9:45 p.m., just under the gun. We hasten upstairs, turn off our cell phones, and settle in. We turn on the TV and switch over to HBO.
And it’s showing Ice Age. And it appears to just be starting. This can’t be. The Sopranos is on in ... two minutes.
No. It couldn’t be. It can’t. It is.
The channel is not HBO. It’s HBO2.
Eff me in the pants.
We go downstairs to confront the clerk who misled us into making the reservation there. Perhaps we could have gotten something out of it, like a discount or an upgraded room. We explain the situation. We reason that, but for the false representations that were made to us, we never would have stayed here. We think that this is a good point.
The clerk (Sanjay, for the record), tells us it is not his problem. We tell him it is, because they don’t have HBO. He doesn’t understand. After an increasingly heated back-and-forth, we have the following exchange:
Charlie: You told us it was HBO! It’s not! It is HBO2!
Sanjay: It’s the same thing!
Charlie: No it’s not! They’re different channels! Like ESPN and ESPN2! They have different programming!
Sanjay: You should have specified the HBO!
Charlie: I did! I said HBO! Which is what it’s called!
Sanjay: (Walking away) I will not listen anymore. You are wasting my time and unnecessarily aggravating me.
At this point I lose whatever was left of my composure and a yelling match ensues. I am led away until I can calm down.
Long story short, we get a 20 percent discount and find out we can watch the finale at 1 a.m. on HBO2. To calm me down, we all went to a Hooters, where I could look at boobies and eat wings. It worked, to a degree.
In the end, being forced to stay up until 2 to see what happened on The Sopranos was the best thing that could have happened to us, as I’ll detail tomorrow. In that sense, I guess we should make peace with Sanjay, or at least grudgingly thank him. He ended up indirectly saving us a lot of money.
To this day, we occasionally call Sanjay at the Asheville Comfort Inn and ask him whether they have HBO and if he’s sure it’s not HBO2. We also inquire about the various ESPNs, ABC and ABC Family, and other such channels. The phone number for the Comfort Inn is right there in the link, if you ever feel like you might visit North Carolina and are wondering whether they have your favorite channel. We encourage you to call.
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