GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Guests at a local Holiday Inn were stunned today when all three of the property’s ice machines were found in working order at the same time.
“I stay here at least twice a month,” said napkin entrepreneur Lucy Hennings. “The staff always puts me in room 324. During the five years I’ve made this Holiday Inn a home-away-from home, the third-floor ice machine has never worked. I stopped complaining two years ago and just accepted that it wouldn’t never be fixed.”
But that all changed late last night.
“I needed ice for my nightly chardonnay spritzer,” she reported. “So, I started my usual trek to the second floor. That ice machine works about eighty-percent of the time. When it doesn’t, I go to the first floor. The employees use that one, so it usually works because they gots to have their ice. But when I strolled past the ice machine on three, the old, crinkly ‘Out of Order’ sign was gone. Just for grins, I pressed the button. Cold, clean ice shot out of that puppy. I literally cried.”
Dan Krzwykz from Tulsa brings his family to the Holiday Inn “once or twice a year” when they’re in town to go shopping and see their favorite college sports teams.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone up and down the stairs or in the elevators just to find a working ice machine. But when we heard all three of ‘em working today, we to each floor and got ice from each machine. Just because we could. This is a very special stay. We’ll never forget it.”
Assistant night manager Huey James has worked at the property since it opened in 2011.
“I think opening day was the last time all three ice machines worked,” he said. “So, this really is sort of historical.”
He added that people pound on the ice machines, insert foreign objects into the vents, and often stick their hands up the ice chutes.
“All of that contributes to ice machines not working. Gross, ain’t it?”
Robert “Bob” Hart of regional ice machine repair company My Cold Hart would neither confirm nor deny that his business fixed the frequently broken frozen water dispensaries.
“Certain hotels are known for being super-cheap,” he said. “They don’t want all their properties finding out if there’s actually a budget for fixing stuff.”
It’s not yet known how long any of the ice machines plan to work before randomly shutting down again.
yuk, yuk. The humor in this was told years ago in Byron’s Don Juan — “Tis strange—but true; for truth is always strange,—stranger than fiction” and indeed I have my own ice machine memories…. Try a seven-story Holiday Inn.