Kishore Singh: Making the most of room service

My aunt asked my advice on where she and my uncle could go up in the hills for a summer break, so I booked them into one of my own favourite places, a resort with a charming view of the mountains, an excellent dining service, large rooms with balconies, walking trails, a spa and all the facilities that cater to a relaxed holiday. I hadn't counted on her being the sort of person who likes nothing more than to take over the housekeeping and give the management a piece of her mind. I quake to think of what she must have put them through.

Surely the rooms were nice, I suggested to her, after having listened to her litany of complaints about the "quality" of their holiday upon their return. "I suppose they were okay," she said grudgingly, "but there wasn't any toothpaste in the bathroom." I remembered the resort providing little squeezy tubes of paste on demand, and told her as much. "I always carry and use my own toothpaste," my aunt censured me. What she was upset about was that "with the rates they were charging", the housekeeping hadn't thought to place any in the room on their own, even though they efficiently catered to her demand with several extra freebies thrown in for good measure. She returned with a bag full of dinky toothpaste tubes and jars of unguents that she immediately put to use in her powder room.

Nor was that all. I'd assured them at the time of departure that the buffet spread for breakfast was, by any measure, a splendid one. "But they had no sausages," she complained to me, even though the doctor had forbidden her husband from having any, "nor were there any cutlets." That might have been unfortunate, but it was hardly parsimonious, given the choice of eggs and cereals, the cold cuts and meats, and spreads of north and south Indian sections on offer. "When you charge so much," she told the manager, "you must have sausages and cutlets on the menu." He bought peace with handouts of preserves from the kitchen and condiments from the kitchen garden that now graced her dining table.

Her goody bag wasn't entirely composed of legitimate takeaways from the hotel. She brought back soft, almost-new towels from the resort, having had the foresight to carry older ones that she'd been using at home, and which had earlier been pinched from elsewhere. She replaced these with the clean ones that had been provided in the room, thereby recycling her towels to advantage. She managed to replace the servants' tawdry cutlery that she'd also carried with her with the resort's better service. She ordered her husband to pinch some glasses too, but had her comeuppance when these broke on the journey back, so she had to have her clothes drycleaned to get rid of the shards, which cost more than if she'd thought to buy new glassware.

But it wasn't the cost as much as the habit that drove her. I was astonished when she asked me to book them back this weekend at the same place - though insisting on a more favourable tariff. "I thought you didn't like the place," I said. "Not really," she affirmed, "but I need to change my shower curtains, and the ice-pail at home has tarnished and they carry the same design, and I noticed that the beds are of similar size so I'd like to change my bedsheets, and they did have rather nice ones…"