{"id":21487,"date":"2011-10-17T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T18:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=21487"},"modified":"2011-10-17T12:42:39","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T16:42:39","slug":"assault-on-the-minibar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/17\/assault-on-the-minibar\/","title":{"rendered":"Assault on the Minibar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the reception desk I filled in all the necessary details and got the key. Before I headed off to my room the receptionist asked:<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like to open a hotel account?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that you don\u2019t have to pay for everything you have or use in the hotel immediately, you just give your account number.\u201d<\/p>\n

I declined. What do I want with a hotel account? I\u2019m only here for three days. Breakfast is included, and most of the time I\u2019ll be out and about.<\/p>\n

The room was large, luxurious, and had that fresh new smell. The furniture was certainly brand-new, the bathroom enormous, and the heavy windows opened gracefully with the touch of a button.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t even gotten around to unpacking my things when I heard a knock at the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I help you?\u201d I asked the young porter.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, but I have to lock the minibar.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you didn\u2019t open a hotel account,\u201d he said, before heading for the minibar, locking it, and leaving.<\/p>\n

All of a sudden I felt the blade of the invisible sword of injustice pressing on the back of my neck. I don\u2019t even use minibars. Alcohol doesn\u2019t agree with me; I don\u2019t like greasy, stale crisps; I hate any kind of peanuts; candy bars of uncertain origin aren\u2019t my thing; random bottled liquids inevitably give me heartburn; and carbonated, nonalcoholic drinks are just plain bad for your health. The bottom line is that a minibar doesn\u2019t have anything I\u2019d ever want. So why did I feel so humiliated? Just because the bellboy locked the minibar? Did he put a padlock on the shower, the bathroom tap, the TV remote, the toilet seat? He didn\u2019t. Rationalizing it, comforting myself with thoughts of the palatial bed or a hot shower, nothing helped. I was inconsolable. It was just the hopeless sense of deprivation.<\/p>\n

They say that a German company called Siegas first manufactured the minibar. But apparently we\u2019ve got the visionary mind of hotel executive Robert Arnold to thank for its ubiquity. As Wikipedia reliably informs us, Arnold was on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong in 1974 when he spotted miniature bottles of alcohol for the first time. Arnold ordered a supply of the bottles, and his employer, the local Hilton, took a gamble on the honesty of its guests. Honesty minibars<\/em> are what they called them. A few months later, word spread in the hotel world that the minibars in the Hong Kong Hilton had increased turnover on alcoholic drinks by about five hundred percent, and from then on minibars were part of the furniture in every hotel in the world. All thanks to Robert Arnold and an epiphany inspired by a quick glance at a tiny bottle. It might seem by the by, but similar miniature bottles were sold in the watering holes of my former homeland. Their devotees lovingly called them \u201ckiddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this is actually the point: love. Minibars are all about love. Let\u2019s think about it: What is, in actual fact, a minibar? A minibar is designed as a dollhouse for grown men. Men love their \u201ckiddies.\u201d A hip flask, the teenage dream of today\u2019s seventy-year-old, was known as a \u201cbuddy.\u201d Kiddie, buddy, minibar\u2014they\u2019re all diminutives for a guilty something. Guilt in the diminutive is not guilt; it\u2019s the simulation of guilt. And therein lies the unique effect of the minibar.<\/p>\n

For many a lonely businessman, the minibar is a symbolic substitute for home. Getting back to your room, opening the little fridge door, popping open a bottle of beer, flopping down into an armchair and putting one\u2019s feet up on the table\u2014it\u2019s a ritual deeply ingrained in the imaginary, even of those who don\u2019t come home, open the fridge, and take a beer.<\/p>\n

The minibar is also designed as a first-aid kit. Even if you\u2019ve never used it, the thought of your home first-aid kit makes you feel safe and protected. That\u2019s why some minibars also have condoms. \u201cBuddies\u201d to protect you from \u201ckiddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minibar is also a kind of temple, a place where we come face-to-face with the metaphysical. In a hotel room you wake from a nightmare. Surrounded by the indifferent darkness, there\u2019s no one to hug and comfort you. The minibar gives off a dull (transcendent) light, bottles and bags stand contritely upright, as if in a chapel. The minibar radiates serenity. In the terrifying darkness of the hotel room this lit-up display acts like apaurin. Everything is okay, I\u2019m back in reality\u2014the nightmare is over.<\/p>\n

This psychodramatic riddle\u2014home, guilt, first aid, temple\u2014is solved at the reception desk when you check out. The answer is the final and finale-like question that every receptionist asks every guest in every hotel of the world: \u201cDid you have anything from the minibar?\u201d At that moment the guest senses the painful prick of metaphysical guilt. An honesty minibar<\/em>? In some hotels the maids audit the contents of the minibar every morning, restocking it as they go, making the question superfluous. Nonetheless, all receptionists ask it\u2014and they all ask it with that same snippy interrogative tone. The guest\u2019s rage begins to swell. Not only did you prepay for the room, not only did you pay for overpriced coffee in the hotel bar, not only did you pay for this, that, or the other thing, but you then have put up with a lowly receptionist humiliating you with an honesty test. Nothing\u2019s free in life. No argument there. But why oh why is the cost so high?!<\/p>\n

The minibar is an expensive escapade, just like a psychoanalytic s\u00e9ance. The minibar perpetuates the same model. Hence the receptionist\u2019s authoritarian tone, hence the sniffing around your room and inspection (of your minibar!) in your absence, hence your righteous rage at this mind-numbing display of power. In this psychoanalytic s\u00e9ance the receptionist turns into an authoritarian mother or father, into your boss at work, the police, an institution of power with which there can be no negotiation. For God\u2019s sake, you could pinch the towels, the bathrobes, the table lamp, remove the hand basin and shower taps, and make off with the lot scot-free, but the thought doesn\u2019t help. They pin you to the wall over a piddly bottle of bad vermouth and a rancid bag of crisps.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know whether hotel staff read Internet forums. It\u2019s enough to type in \u201cminibar,\u201d and private armies of the aggrieved assemble, many waging personal guerrilla wars. Did you know that there are people who pee into empty beer bottles, jam the lids back on, and put them back in the minibar? Did you know that some people plaster the base of bottles with hairspray, stick them back down in the fridge, and leave the next person to desperately try to pry them loose? Did you know that if you don\u2019t check the minibar as soon as you get into the room, they\u2019re likely to sting you for a half-empty bottle of beer someone snuck into your fridge? Or how\u2019s this: There are even minibars with built-in sensors that clock every movement and change in weight, so that if you don\u2019t put the bottle or the chips back within ten seconds you have to pay for them, no matter what. I mean, who wouldn\u2019t get in a huff? They\u2019re busy trying to pull a quickie on you, while, at the same time, demanding your<\/em> honesty. They\u2019ve got it in for you in advance\u2014you\u2019re a thief, a grifter, and a boozehound. The minibar is a symbol of the totalitarian world. And by the way\u2014can you be sure that at the pearly gates St. Peter isn\u2019t going to welcome you with the question: \u201cDid you take something from a minibar and not pay for it?\u201d and then, depending on your answer, send you to a heavenly hotel with one, three, or seven stars?<\/p>\n

In my native language the word \u201cminibar\u201d contains a number of other words. Two of them are critical here: rab <\/em>or rob<\/em>, which means \u201cslave,\u201d and mina<\/em>, which means \u201cmine\u201d\u2014as in \u201cland mine.\u201d The minibar is a minefield, for as soon as you cross its path you\u2019ve immediately become a slave. Today, when almost every totalitarian system has exploded (okay, fine, it\u2019s more that they imploded), the minibar is totalitarian shrapnel snugly nestled into a cozy space that\u2019s devoid of all ideology\u2014the hotel room. The minibar is the last bastion of totalitarianism, its invisible nest. Struggle against the minibar is possible, but only as a personal guerrilla action.<\/p>\n

So, getting back to the hotel I mentioned at the start, this is my confession: I launched the assault on the minibar in room 513. I wrestled it into the bathroom. I defaced it with the hotel key, scratching Death <\/em>to the Minibar! <\/em>into its smooth surface. I threw it in the bath tub, and I turned on the tap. And finally, when the receptionist asked, \u201cDid you have anything from the minibar?\u201d I replied: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be caught dead!\u201d We need to put our heads together. If hotels know how to put sensors in their minibars, they\u2019ll soon figure out a way of charging us for the mere thought that we might fancy a little something.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dubravka Ugresic is an essayist and novelist. Born in Croatia, she currently lives in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpted from <\/em>Karaoke Culture<\/a> by Dubravka Ugresic, forthcoming from Open Letter Books<\/a>. Copyright \u00a9 2011 by Dubravka Ugresic. Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the reception desk I filled in all the necessary details and got the key. 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