How I Ruined a Honeymoon

I am not the most experienced person, romantically speaking. Until college, I suspected that I might be alone for my entire life. That specter has reared its irrational head a few times since then. I kind of suck at dating, if my recent attempts are any indication. The point is, I am not happily involved with someone. Could that lead to resentment inside my heart? A deeper, more poisonous version of when you see a happy couple and instead of feeling happy for them, are demoralized, or even disgusted? According to a groom last night, I do, in fact, harbor such feelings and actively sabotaged his wedding night.

I work at a hotel as a night auditor. The short explanation is that I man the front desk from 11 pm to 7 am. Usually the night shift is dead. Last night was more eventful—mostly drunk people wandering in and out of the lobby. There are also two wedding parties staying in the hotel (whether the drunk people can be counted among their numbers is unknown). I have worked nights of weddings before; often, couples will stagger in following the reception, with the bride and groom showing up last in the early morning.

Last night a newly-married couple drug themselves to the front desk. They were exhausted.

“Long drive?” I asked.

“No, a wedding,” they said, “we were married.”

“Congratulations.”

I then went on to apologize for the fact that I was having difficulty checking them in. I had to run to the fourth floor to check that their room was actually clean. After this, I proceeded to process their credit card. Bright red letters appeared on the screen: Credit Card Authorization Declined. The groom went out to their car to grab the credit card they planned on using—I asked him to do that just in case I had the wrong card on file. I didn’t. When he returned, I went through the process again and the card declined.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I somehow downgraded them from a whirlpool room to a normal king room. We were completely booked and the system would not let me select the correct type of room. When I explained what had happened, they were initially alright with the situation.

“We’re tired. We just need a place to sleep,” said the bride, resting her head in her hands.

After the credit card declined, however, things became tense.

“Now I’m upset,” the groom said, raising his voice, “I had a room reserved. I reserved a whirlpool. And now…”

I wasn’t sure what to say. He went over to his new wife, who was sitting down at this point, barely awake. After a short while, I heard him saying, “This guy’s playing with us. This kid’s fucking playing with us.”

He came back over to the front desk and expressed his frustration. I tried to assure him that I was doing everything I could. There was simply no way the system would let me check them in without a form of payment.

“You’re ruining our honeymoon. You know that?”

The bride came over and tried to calm him down.

Internally, I panicked. I considered calling my manager aloud, hoping that this possible resolution would diffuse some of the hostility. The guy continued to insinuate that I was keeping something from them or refusing to do something that would easily remedy the situation, his eyes bulging out a little bit.

Eventually, after the bride explained that they had already been staying in the hotel under a different room and insisted that she was friends with several employees, I decided to give into their request and give them the keys to the room. The problem is that they are not in the system. Without a credit card clearing, they might have no viable way to pay the hotel.

I have a nasty habit of viewing myself as incompetent in many tasks. My perspective on how well I do my job is not immune to this pessimism. Did I ineptly mess up everything, then try to save things with a terrible decision, or am I simply looking for an excuse to feel guilty about something? I hope I do not get fired for doing this. But I felt bad.

I believed the groom when he said that I was ruining their honeymoon.