Dear Courtyard® by Marriott,

My wife won’t stop nagging and haranguing about your towel policy. Please, make her stop.

Each time we register for a room, we tell you exactly how many occupants there will be. Each time, it is four. And yet each time we show up in our pre-appointed hotel space, there are exactly three towels. Three towels is too few for four people.

And it gets worse.

Each time my wife harangues and complains to me about the illogical distribution of towels at your locations before she calls down to the desk where a variably irritated or polite clerk promises to send up an additional towel. The next morning, after we are all scrubbed and shiny, we leave our four towels hanging on the assorted hooks and racks around the bathroom. We are concerned inhabitants of a troubled planet and take the lip service in this note to heart:

Making Smart Choices

Courtyard® is taking steps to preserve our planet. If you would like to help, please hang your towels so they can be used again.

Of course, we will be happy to replace your towels should you want new ones. Simply leave them elsewhere and we will replace them.

Marriott Spirit to Preserve

Well, so when we return from our outings we invariably find our four hanging towels replaced by freshly laundered folded ones. How many? You tell me.

My wife starts up her harangue and nagging all over again before she calls down to a clerk at the desk, variably irritated or spirited, and our fourth towel is sent up. Also freshly laundered. The clerk has told us, regarding the three towels: “Oh yeah, that’s standard.”

That’s not standard. That’s stupid. And its wasteful. Please stop, because my wife is nagging and haranguing and you are ruining our vacations, our marriage, and our planet. Please. Stop. Because you are the ones who request the precise number of guests, and we are the ones who provide that information. But the information isn’t used to make our experience better; our experience in fact is worse despite providing this information.

So, please stop. Because–and it pains me to say this when I’m in the middle of her harangue–my wife is right.

Sincerely,

Irritated Near Weehawken

P.S. It occurs to me that maybe our four towels are being used again, by other guests in another room. If that is the case, it is disgusting.