By Anessa V. Cohen
I thought to take advantage of yeshiva break this week to go away and relax and recharge. So I arranged to set off to the Caribbean with my husband for a warm and relaxing cruise, where there would be nothing more pressing to decide than which chaise to relax on, which pool to lounge at, and whether I should disembark when in port to take advantage of whatever the various islands had in store.
Fast-forward to a couple of weeks ago, when the forecasts had already started with warnings of a blizzard to take place the day before we were scheduled to fly out of New York to embark on the cruise.
My husband wanted to avoid any travel issues by hightailing it out of New York before the airports closed and we missed the cruise altogether. He suggested that we change the flight to several days before the storm, and take a hotel in Florida to wait for the cruise there.
I finally relented and called the airline, and we managed to change our flights and get out of New York early while the sun was still shining. In Florida, we checked in to a nice hotel on the water.
The room was nice, the view was great, the pool and grounds beautiful, and the water views magnificent. I told myself I’d really hit gold; I could sit and relax in this beautiful hotel, awaiting the day that I was due to go on the cruise for my well-deserved vacation. Life was good!
But then, when I went to open the closet in my lovely hotel room, I discovered that the hotel had installed swing doors. And not only the closet doors; as I walked around testing the various doors in the room, I discovered that every door in the room was an automatic swing door. I now realized where the expression “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” came from!
I would open the closet door to hang something up, and if I did not hold the door open with my other hand, the door would shut before I could hang anything up. The bathroom and exit doors were just as problematic. Why would anyone want an automatic door that closes before you are ready for it to close? Talk about the most annoying nuisance ever! The only place that should have a swing door is a saloon. And if we did not see them on all the westerns, swing doors wouldn’t even be a thought.
Nothing was going to keep me from enjoying a vacation, though—not a super blizzard, and not swing doors that closed when I did not want them to. “Serenity now!”
I sat down on my terrace to enjoy the view, and suddenly heard the bang of a door closing loudly like it had been slammed. “I guess the hotel forgot to install a swing door,” I figured. Five minutes later, I heard it slam again, and I began to realize that the door kept slamming on and off every few minutes. I got up and went out to the hall to investigate.
Well, the answer was not to my liking! The door slamming was the housekeeper’s supply-room door. A swing door had been installed there at one time, but now was not working properly, so every time she came in and out of that room, the door slammed shut in anger. It was so loud, you would never know someone was not forcibly slamming it shut each time. So much for my extra few days of peace and quiet while waiting for the cruise!
Moral of this story: for those of you even considering installing swing doors, slam the door shut on that idea!
Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a licensed real-estate broker and a licensed N.Y.S. mortgage broker with over 20 years of experience, offering full-service residential and commercial real-estate services (Anessa V Cohen Realty) and mortgaging services (FM Home Loans) in the Five Towns and throughout the tri-state area. She can be reached at 516-569-5007 or via her website, www.AVCrealty.com. Readers are encouraged to send questions or comments to anessa@AVCrealty.com.