The Cranky Product Manager

British Terrorists, You Suck

Thanks a bunch, you a-hole British terrorists.  Now the Cranky Product Manager has to figure out how to get her $60 face cream, not to mention the rest of her makeup and toiletries, back to her Blue State without incident.  As if the bed bugs weren't enough for one week.

Apparently, the TSA ban on liquids and gels only applies to carry-on luggage. Regardless, though, the Cranky Product Manager finds the mere thought of checking bags to be physically repulsive; she has not done it in over 5 years.  Only slightly less repugnant is the prospect of being forced to use nasty peach-colored, masculine-scented, hotel-provided hygeine products on all future business trips. Egad. What will happen to her skin and her hair?

Already the Cranky Product Manager's imagination has gone into lurid overdrive, imagining a future of traveling without her treasured 32-ounce bottle of water.  No more lip balm on those dry international flights. No more monster-sized lattes aboard those 6am, but wake-yer-ass-up-at-4am-
no-wait-better-make-it-3am-now-because-of-the-friggin'-terrorists, flights.  Sharing a seat row with someone deprived of deoderant for a week. Being seated next to a 3-year-old without a sippy cup of apple juice. The horror.

Perhaps the Cranky Product Manager should give up on visiting customers.  Make them visit her instead.

Yeah, right. A Product Manager who does not visit customers. Sounds like an unemployed Product Manager, doesn't it?

Bed Bug Aftermath

You will be happy to know the Cranky Product Manager has checked out of that vermin-infested Red State Hilton Garden Inn and is now at the substantially more upscale Red State Sheraton. Alas, the rate is now $260 a night (ouch), almost double the price of the former accomodations.  Seems like a steep price for a quasi-hick town in the middle of the country. After all, it ain't Manhattan. Or even Charlotte, NC, for that matter.  Ah well, at least there aren't massive critter nests in the seams of the mattresses.  Yes, she checked.

All of the Cranky Product Manager's clothes and luggage are currently being laundered and cleaned by the Red State's finest dry cleaner (which advertises itself as a Christian-owned business, thank goodness...wouldn't want any heathens touching the Cranky Product Manager's threads).  In the interim, the Cranky PM is indeed using a plastic grocery bag as a briefcase and is sporting a swanky(!) new outfit from Wal-mart.  Polyester....mmm. How she loves it.

And a shout out to Bob of ack/nak for his most helpful advice.  If you ever get a bed bug infestation, he's the man to call. Seriously.

The Bed Bug Situation

Frequent travel to customers and satellite corporate offices is a fact of life for the Cranky Product Manager. She has super-elite status with many an airline and hotel chain.  Over the course of her 10-20ish year career, she has probably spent around 700 nights in hotels.  Being an egotistical individual, the Cranky Product Manager considered herself to be an "expert"  business traveler within North America.  Nothing, she thought, could shock her anymore.

She was wrong.

Last night, at the Red State Hilton Garden Inn, the Cranky Product Manager encountered that species known as Bed Bugs, insects that she heretofore had likened to and orcs and Klingons.  Alas, she discovered that bed bugs are very real, very disgusting, and their bites are profuse and very itchy.  That is why she screamed at the top of her lungs at 3am, no doubt waking up dozens of hotel guests in the process.

The hotel has relocated her to another room (as if only one room is infested!), but now the Cranky PM must figure out how to not take these bed bugs home with her. God help her if her own house becomes infested with these vile creatures. 

Does this mandate the burning of her suits and travel clothes?  The immediate disposal of her trusty Travelpro roll-aboard suitcase and favorite Tumi laptop bag?  Must she fly back to her Blue State haven clothed in garments bought at the airport and with her laptop inside a plastic grocery bag? 

The Cranky Product Manager requests your advice. In a very serious, urgent way. 

Help. Please.