Open letter to the chambermaid at the Trinity Capital Hotel, Dublin
Dear Madam,
You don’t know me, and my shame about what I am about to admit prevents me from revealing my identity. My husband and I have just returned from a delightful break in your wonderful city, both of which are worth at least a 200 word gush on Trip Advisor. EACH! Thankfully I did not hasten to said website when, earlier in the day, I was convinced beyond reproach you had stolen my moisturiser. My suspicions first arose on Saturday afternoon. I remembered using the moisturiser (Clinique Moisture Surge, only 6 days old) that very morning as I have started, and been uncharacteristically dedicated to, a brand new regimen suggested by the kind ladies at the counter in House of Fraser. I did not voice my concerns to my husband until late Sunday, as it’s not unusual for me to misplace all sorts of things under jumpers, in spare bags etc. But I had checked everywhere by this point and required rational assistance. He, too, checked everywhere and could find it not. I ACCUSED YOU very loudly, many times, of larceny, a word I had learned that morning on a guided tour of Kilmainham Gaol. Now, I hope you will forgive me for what I am about to say. Between Saturday afternoon and the morning of our departure I had created (in my mind) a complete criminal profile of you, the moisturiser thief. My hitherto successfully repressed inner Daily Mail reader decided that you were a European Union female, aged 20 to 40, short, fat, possibly with a limp caused by DVT or childhood surgery gone wrong under a Communist government. You were uneducated but with the clever slyness that petty criminals posses (again, in my mind) which meant that, while you freely took my Moisture Surge you left other fancy face stuff that was part of a matching set, as you reasoned I would be more likely to notice. Imagine my utter disgust with myself this evening when I returned home, forlorn and with a dry, flaky t-zone, to find my moisturiser on my dressing table in my bedroom. OH THE SHAME! I am now moved to something akin to Catholic guilt by images of you scrupulously cleaning our hotel bedroom. Tucking the corners of the sheets under the mattress, just-so. Picking up our pants of the floor. Folding the edge of the toilet paper into a little point. Never once passing judgement on the bits of pretzel in the bed…YOU ARE A PARAGON OF VIRTUE MADAM! I thoroughly deserve to have a dessicated epidermis, as a reflection of my inner grotesqueness. I can only apologise profusely for thinking so ill of you, and guarantee that I will never do so again to anyone of your ilk.
Yours humbly,
The slob in 113
