I don’t know if this is a Marriott thing in general, or just TownePlace Suites, but the staff there have taken to the habit of asking me upon checkout, “Did you have a perfect stay”?

I never know how to respond to this question. Perfection is a platonic ideal, never to be achieved in real life–it is a goal only to be sought. To ask someone whether or not they have achieved it is to put one on the spot. I can lie, and say yes (which no doubt many do, just to get out and on their way). Or I can tell the truth, and say no, or in an attempt to avoid the quandary, to inform them that perfection isn’t possible. This doesn’t get me off the hook–the inevitable response to either of the latter is “…well, if it wasn’t perfect, what could we have done to make it perfect?”

I don’t know.

Make it so the teevee can be viewed while working on the computer? Have wine glasses? A slightly firmer bed? Protein with the overcarbed muffins in the breakfast room? A quieter room, away from the street? Move the entire hotel to the beach? Move the entire hotel to Cabo? Open bar happy hour? Hot and cold running nymphomaniacs?

It’s an unreasonable question, and whatever marketing genius came up with it should rethink it, because it’s gotten to the point of making me not want to stay there. I think the next time they ask, I’ll say, “My stay would be perfect if you wouldn’t ask me if my stay was perfect.” Ask if it was good, if it was great, if there were any problems, but please don’t place the burden of your failure to achieve the unachievable on me.