We almost ruined our honeymoon in Venice. My new bride, Chantal, was so looking forward to this stop. Switzerland had been heavenly. Austria thrilled us. But Venice was to be the pinnacle of our trip.
We found a lovely pensione in Lido, a picturesque island just across from Venice. The old stone house had been converted into a bed-and-breakfast in a postcard neighborhood. Lush trees, flowers, canals, quaint footbridges, and a wrought iron gate gave it a nostalgic, old world charm.
We checked into the pensione with the highest of expectations. Stella, the owner, was a graceful lady with a professional air. She sat behind her polished wood desk wearing a “customer service smile” calculated to add an elegant touch. What a classy place to stay.
We had been traveling for about ten days, so we were due for laundry. As we had not seen any laundromats, we asked Stella if they provided such a service.
“Of course. We wash it by machine and dry it out in the fresh Italian breeze.” And all it would cost us is our weight in Lira.
Did we want that ironed? We were wearing shorts and T-shirts, so we declined the ironing.
It was the next day that Stella became known as The Wicked Witch. She had an employee plop down on our bed three small plastic bags, stuffed like turkeys with our clothes. It was not easy, but we pulled our clothes out from the bags one by one. We pulled our damp, crumpled clothes that had never been caressed by the fresh Italian breeze out from the bags one by one.
Every piece looked like it had been squeezed through a special crumple machine – including underwear that had never wrinkled in the laundry before. She had even found a way to wrinkle our “wrinkle free” shirts.
I was infuriated. I was ready to hit the ceiling. With some misgivings, Chantal let me go downstairs to “reason” with Stella. “Is not my problem,” was the best customer service she could offer through her customer service smile.
Anything for another sack of gold
I even asked to borrow the iron. “This is not a service we provide.” Although, for another sack of gold she would graciously iron our wardrobe—even the underwear.
In frustration, I stormed back up the stairs. “There’s just no reasoning with that woman!” Chantal went down to reason with her more calmly than I apparently was prepared to do. At first, I heard nothing, but as Chantal’s “calmness” grew ever louder, I went down to join her.
At long last, Stella threw us another option: “If you don’t like, you can go to another hotel.”
Finally a useful suggestion from her. So, in a near rage, we began packing our bags. We would find another hotel and continue our trip. So there! Why should our honeymoon be ruined by The Wicked Witch?
And we almost did stomp off in search of another hotel. But then something miraculous happened: we took leave of our senses, so to speak. We put our anger aside long enough to ask what would be in our own best interest. Did we really want to waste one of our three days in Venice hunting for another hotel, packing our damp clothes, forfeiting some of our hefty hotel deposit, and still fuming (even more, perhaps) about Wicked Witch Stella?
We decided to stay at the otherwise lovely hotel. We shook out our clothes and hung them up to dry on doors, door handles, cupboard, bed posts … anywhere that clothes could hang. Most importantly, we consciously decided to stop feeling anger.
Leaving behind our laundry-spangled room, we skipped off to the vaparetto boat to enjoy Venice. Can you believe that one simple decision not to fume had put the spring back into our steps?
Ten years later we wanted to remember the excitement of Venice, not the Wicked Witch’s larceny. She could have spoiled our visit to Venice…but only if we had let her. What a valuable lesson to learn, a lesson that helped inspire me to finally write that book lurking inside me. Ten years later, we will remember Wicked Witch Stella … not with anger, but with laughter.
(An adaptation about attitude from the self-help book Climb your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness.)
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