Right around 11 o’clock on the night of Sunday, March 16th, is when my dad and I realized that our iPods had been stolen from our hotel room at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. My dad had left his charging on the bathroom counter and mine had been in the zippered front pocket of my bookbag with my headphones wrapped around it. We both knew immediately that they had to have been stolen, but we still tore the room apart looking for them. And we went down to the rental car and inspected every inch of it. It was laughable, of course. If you know me at all, you know I am absolutely psychotic about losing things.
After about an hour of searching, my dad was ready to go to bed. He had shot a 95 at Desert Pines that morning — his best round ever and first time to break 100! — and knew there was little chance that hotel security was going to care and / or help us at all. I was so angry I couldn’t see straight.
He got into bed while I sat on the phone — on hold, mostly — with hotel security. I finally spoke with Brian, who said he was the security manager and told me that he would send someone to our room. Around half-past midnight a casually-dressed man named Rebert finally came to take my report. I explained everything to him and he took notes and had me sign the report, etc. He said that they would contact me within 24 hours.
Nobody contacted me on Monday the 17th.
On Tuesday the 18th I called the Tropicana and was connected to the security department. I was told that, although there is a “Brian” on the staff, he is not a manager of any type and that I was wrong to have been told I would be contacted so quickly. I asked them if they had determined who had access to the keys to our room, if they knew who was on the cleaning service for our floor, if they had bothered to do anything at all. I was told no. I was told that the “incident report” would be submitted to the “Risk Management” department and that they would contact me as soon as they received it.
Nobody contact me on Wednesday the 19th.
On Thursday the 20th I called the Tropicana and asked for a manager. The person who claimed to be the manager — at this point I have little faith in anything anyone there says — told me that there is no “Risk Management” department and that anything would have been sent to Myra at “the home office in Kentucky”. Her name and phone number were on my copy of the incident report, so I called her. Of course she did not answer the phone, so I left a voice mail with my name, phone number, and incident report number. Later that day Myra returned my call and told me that nobody had submitted anything to her, but that she would contact the Tropicana and get to the bottom of it.
On Friday the 21st Myra called. I don’t know if she was ever given the incident report, but she had me recount the entire story again and told me that she would do her best to handle it.
Nobody called me on Saturday the 22nd or Sunday the 23rd or Monday the 24th or Tuesday the 25th.
This morning, March 26th, I called Myra and left her another voice mail asking for an update. A few hours later I received a call from Bill at GAB Robins in Duluth, Georgia. Bill was very nice and asked me to once again tell my tale. He said that it was great that my dad and I got to go golfing together. He also said that we were lucky that our laptops weren’t stolen and that we should make sure to backup our data before we travel. (I always do.) Bill told me that he would contact the Tropicana and get back to me tomorrow.
So there you go. My dad has already gone to Apple.com and ordered and received a new iPod. I’m going to wait another week to see if the Tropicana does the right thing here …
PS: In my sophomore year of high school I lost a pair of sunglasses. That’s it. I do not lost things. I’ve never lost my keys, my wallet, not even a f*ing pen. And, in my defense, the sunglasses were lost in the sand on Daytona Beach when two of my friends knocked them off the hood of a car while they were fighting over whether to leave a waxed surfboard in the sun or under the car.
