The story, as promised… I’ll try to make it interesting. It won’t be. But it’s my site, and I want to get it off my chest. Sit back, kids, and hear my tale…

[whooshing sound effect. The screen blurs. We find ourselves in an earlier, more innocent, sepia-toned era known as “last Thursday.”]

A few nights ago, my wife did the kind of thing that I would never think to do. She looked at our credit card statement. What possessed her, I don’t know. After some keenly directed questioning, I learned that such things are actually a habit with her, and that they have something to do with airy, arty concepts that she harbors, things with frou-frou names like “fiscal responsibility” and “not being robbed.” I guess it’s a girl thing.

Anyway, in this case, she turned up something. Two charges for hotel rooms in Chicago, both on the same night, both at a time when neither of us were in Chicago. Being smart, logical people, we both immediately turned and stared accusingly at the cat. Horatio said nothing, and I think he actually managed to roll his eyes.

But just as I was googling “kitty waterboarding,” I noticed something - I knew that hotel. It’s a hotel where “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” frequently houses us panelists when our first choice is overbooked. Because the matter is resolved, and because I have more respect for their identity than they do for mine, I will call the place “Diamond Nickels.” And tell you that its real name rhymes with “tub mortars.”

I called them. I got a machine. I left a “What the hey?” and my phone number.

The next morning, at 7AM, I got a call back. [This was an error: Because Jeanne has a worked in the hotel industry, I knew that somebody forgot to check the area code before dialing…]

I explained my case and presented some basic facts, like the fact that I never made the reservation, that I was never even intending to be in Chicago that night, and that even though I have admittedly put on a few pounds, I still don’t require two rooms.

Here’s what I learned. Diamond Nickels believed that “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” had reserved two rooms, that nobody had shown up, and that they had given my credit card number.

I countered with some other facts - there was no radio show that week, and I do not ever pay for my rooms when I travel for “Wait Wait.” Also, I’m not an employee of “Wait Wait” (I’m an independent contractor!), and - and here’s the kicker - they don’t even have my credit card number! Aha! Checkmate!

I’ll condense the timeline a bit, now. Though careful to say that it wasn’t that she didn’t believe me, the woman on the other end of the phone made it clear that she didn’t believe me. I pointed out that Club Quarters Diamond Nickels had probably accidentally taken my credit information from their own computers, as I had given it to them several times to cover the “incidental charges” during my stays. [And as much as I enjoy genital-free pornography, I generally don’t incur any charges.  It’s a check-in formality, just like the traditional “Hello” and “I can’t find your reservation” and “Oh, here it is.”]

The next four hours or so consisted of several phone calls to this woman, and she would not budge from two basic principles: 1) She could not refund my credit card until someone at “Wait Wait” gave her theirs, and 2) her manager, her GM, the president of the company, the shift supervisor, CEO, CFO, Chairman of the Board, and anyone else in a position to help me were, regrettably, unavailable. Presumably on one of those wilderness team-building retreats that involves fat people hiking and making human pyramids which inevitably lead to “personal growth” and “personal injury lawsuits.”

But I persisted, and eventually I spoke to a day manager. He was no more friendly than his underling (and as some of you know, I’m a pretty personable guy. Folks like me. I’m a “people person.”). And his basic tenets were the same: 1) They had to wait for “Wait Wait” to assume the charges, and 2) it was absolutely impossible, nay, unthinkable, nay, beyond any question whatsoever, that anyone at their establishment had unearthed and used my credit information. “Wait Wait,” despite my protestations, must have provided said card number…

I began to throw the term “identity theft” around. Usually, this involves some anonymous desperado cadging and using your credit info. In this case, the person wasn’t so anonymous. But the principle’s the same, isn’t it? After a few unpleasant threats and my continued insistence that however the hotel believed my credit card number got there, the debt simply wasn’t my problem, the manager agreed to remove the charge. In the process he managed, somehow, to audibly roll his eyes. Horatio would’ve been jealous.

The rest of the day was filled with what you’d expect. “Wait Wait” confirmed that nobody there had my credit information, that a reservation for four rooms had been made for that week, and canceled, and that their basic feeling about my ordeal was a hearty “wtf!?”

I wrote a complaint email to the hotel. No, this isn’t over yet. Sorry.

The next morning, I received an email from the hotel’s ubermanager. Though apologetic and polite, she also somehow managed to slide in the idea that she and her people and her organization were still completely in the right. “We have to charge the credit card that is given,” she wrote. [”It wasn’t given!!” I then screamed. I admit - I actually did this. To my computer.]

Shortly after this, I went to my credit account online to see if the charges had been removed yet.

They hadn’t.

And there was another charge there, which hadn’t shown up on my paper statement because it was so recent.

Another room charge.

At that same hotel.

Six days ago.

On a night when I was in L.A. And not on a Thursday, when “Wait Wait” tapes, no - on a Tuesday.

By now, I’d been charged well over 500 bucks by these terse, sighing eye-rollers. And despite their careful denials and whatnot, that last charge made it pretty clear that somehow, the Impossible had happened and someone at their establishment had retrieved my credit info and applied it liberally to a variety of bills. In some ways, I’m glad about that last, crazy room charge. It had the same effect as a murder suspect on the stand leaning over and strangling the judge with a shoelace. At the very least, he’s probably going to have to change his plea after that.

They changed their plea. They apologized via email. They even called to apologize (not to me), and even sent out flowers to apologize (again, not to me, though I’m sure they brightened up the “Wait Wait” offices).

I’m not surprised that the bulk of the apologies went to the show and not to the guy who’d actually been wronged. After all, I’m just an individual. And as I’ve said, I can’t exactly deprive this hotel of my future business, because I’ve never actually given them any of my business in the past. In effect, all that had happened was that they’d somewhat illegally “borrowed” 500 bucks for a couple of weeks, and then I spent several hours of my life fighting to get them to pay me back.

Maybe it’s because I’m walking the picket lines these days, so corporate malfeasance and greed is very much on my mind. But this seems like a symptom of a new low in corporate America. At least in the WGA strike, the big media companies are maintaining their traditional role - the history of Hollywood, if you read it, is all about studios raping talent, from the old abusive and occasionally violent pre- and early-union times to these modern days of creative accounting and PR wars. In some ways, we writers and actors and directors would be insulted if the studios weren’t trying to screw us. Aren’t we still attractive to them?

But hotels? The service industry, wherein all business depends on, well, serving? If they no longer have to be reasonable with their customers then we’ve truly entered a new age. The business is always right; the customer is a necessary evil. I know, that sounds kind of melodramatic. It’s been a rough week, what with the strike and the impending baby and Horatio’s frequent out-of-town business tri— hey, wait a minute…