We suspect most business travelers with a consistent and long-term destination do what we do, which is arrange for the hotel to hold onto one’s major suitcase over each weekend of the contract. (Some are able to escape the weekly packing/unpacking ritual entirely, by arranging for a long-term rental of the room, but the economics of this are sketchy at best.) Doing so greatly streamlines the whole airline thing; we fly with a briefcase and a small carryon with any other incidentals or return/replacement clothing, check nothing, and have nothing with us that requires a pointless TSA baggie.

The fine folks at the Holiday Inn Express in ClientTown have been very nice about this from week one, and we’re very glad of that. They are quite used to seeing Mr Heathen arrive, tired from the road, ’round about 11 local time each Sunday evening. We pass over the all-powerful Amex, pick up our key to 108 — it’s always 108 — and head down the hall to drop off the travel bags before returning to pick up the big-ass rolling hanging bag we leave here. It’s a routine.

In recent weeks, we’ve actually taken more advantage of this hospitality: we’re now leaving two bags, and have discovered that they’ll gleefully hold onto any leftover beer for the weekend as well, kept safe and cold in the office fridge. Perhaps in response to this, or perhaps because they’re just darned nice people, they’ve started being even more helpful: in the last couple weeks, the Sunday night girl has taken to bringing our bags to the room as soon as we check in, instead of waiting for us to knock on the office door. This isn’t a hotel with bellmen; it’s a business deal without so much as a coffeeshop, so it’s definitely more service than we expected.

Well, this week they did one better. As we checked in, we were informed by the nice desk lady that our bags were in fact already in our room, as was our leftover beer. “Have a nice night, Mr Heathen.”

That was nice. We liked it.