John D. Spooner is an investment adviser, author and novelist. His most recent book is the Boston Globe number-one best-seller No One Ever Told Us That, a collection of letters with life lessons for his grandchildren. Here, he responds to queries from advice seekers of all ages. Send your conundrums to thedance@improper.com.

I’m totally with you. In my view, the people who create the modern high-end hotel must be hated by their spouses. The technology in these rooms was designed for utopia, not for the real world. Here’s a small “for instance.” I just returned from a trip to the West Coast, where the last two nights were spent in one of my all-time favorite hotels, which has had a total upgrade in the past few years. Everything in my room was controlled by handhelds, buttons, tiny clickers you had to be 22 years old to even see. These small demons controlled shades, TV, music, heat/air, draperies, room lights, desk lamps, locks and even fountain jets for the bum and other unmentionable parts that they label “front” or “rear.”

After one night, I was proud of myself. I felt I had mastered all of the controls and was feeling young and relevant. My last night, I came back to the room, feeling no pain, master of tech. Then I couldn’t shut off the overhead lights. Finally, after much trial and error, I turned them down. Then I couldn’t shut off the night table lamps, no matter what I did. So I unscrewed the bulbs, my hand wrapped in a towel. I couldn’t shut off the bathroom lights, so I closed the door tight. Pissed off, I slept.

Morning came, and I had to catch a plane. I hopped out of bed, but I could not open the heavy bathroom door—it was locked from the inside. What? Wildly annoyed and in distress, I called the engineer. “I’m Reuben,” he said. I pointed to the door. He leaned down and flicked something no bigger than a pinprick. Open it went. “What idiot architect,” I asked, “would design a lock on the outside of a bathroom door? Or lights that can’t shut off? Reuben, if you go to a hotel on business or pleasure, you don’t want to think about the room. This is madness.”

“I agree with you completely,” he said. “What can I do? I’m surrounded by idiots. Don’t tell anyone I said that. We get complaints all the time.”

“If I come back here, Reuben, I’m going to request a king-size bed and that you have to sleep in it next to me.”

He loved that, and I barely made my plane.

All you and I can do about this is ask to speak to the manager and state your case. If they lose enough business, they’ll get the picture. Hotels where the engineers are happier than the guests will eventually have a problem.

Simple is so much better than complex.

Your mother knows you’re an adult. This is really about her loneliness and her life with you out of the nest.

After my father died, I talked to my mother every day, just to make sure she was OK. This was before email and texting, and the conversations were long enough that once a day was plenty. One of the problems with texting is that the back-and-forth never ends. It’s way too open-ended. So I believe that you should suggest something like this: “Mom, I love you and my life is complicated. How about we have a phone conversation every day, for maybe 10 minutes or so, and get things off our chests? Then I can hear your voice.”

This flatters her and set some limits. If you stick to them, your relationship may be much easier to manage. People tend to love us more if there are boundaries.

Let’s see, your friend thinks that if she makes love to this guy once more, that could end it? Sure could, if she managed to make the lovemaking a horrible experience. But Woody Allen said, “I’ve never had a bad orgasm.”

“One last fling” is an immature way to break anything off forever. How about saying, “You’re an interesting person”—even if he isn’t—“but we all grow at different rates. It’s over.”

Honesty often works best. Even for dishonest people.


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