Member-only story
I’m Traveling and I Forgot to Bring My Stash of Emergency Tea
The pain is real, people
I was never a boy scout but I like to be prepared. Passports ✓, phone ✓, reading material ✓. In over five decades of travel, I’ve forgotten some pretty important things — the tent when camping, any shirts for one child, an entire suitcase for another child, insulin— but right at this moment, sitting in a hotel lobby at 5:45 waiting for the breakfast area to be opened, forgetting to bring along a stash of emergency tea is looming large as one of my greatest regrets in life.
Not to bash the land of my citizenship or anything but I would not be in crisis if I wasn’t currently on US soil. Every British hotel I have ever stayed in has included a kettle and all necessary supplies to make an adequate cup of tea in the room. This includes the room so cheap and small my husband and I were seriously perplexed about where to set our suitcase and still manage to walk around the bed.
In the end, we had to set the suitcase on the bed to open it and then close it up and set it upright next to the bed to sleep. there were no other options. And the bathroom was a closet with a toilet and shower right on top of each other. At least you knew the toilet was rinsed off regularly. Even this room labeled on the website as “cozy” and “best for two people” had a kettle…
