So I was on a plane recently, skimming through their in-flight shopping magazine when I came across this product …
Yes, it’s an alarmed ‘door wedge’, but that’s not what I found interesting, it was the description of the product and who they think it may be appropriate for …
Yes, they really are saying it is a great product for people who find sleeping alone in hotels, unnerving.
How exactly?
Are you supposed to use the wedge to keep the door slightly ajar so that you can see the ‘safe glow’ on the hotel corridor lights … even though any perverted bastard could peer in and see you sleeping.
Or maybe, despite locking and chaining your hotel door from the inside, you are supposed to put the wedge underneath the door – adding another layer of inpenatrability – even though you run the risk of a 130db alarm going off when some hotel staff member tries to shove the bill or a message under the door.
Look, I’ve stayed in some very dodgy hotels in my time.
The sort of hotels where you want an armed guard behind the door, let alone an alarmed door wedge … but even if I did have that thing when I was staying in them [example: a ‘hotel’ that cost about $2 a night, next to a train station in the seediest part of Venezuela], I don’t know if it would have given me peace of mind, especially if the bloody thing went off in the middle of the night. [Which it would have as I discovered every room key opened every room]
While I appreciate the illusion of safety is a wonderful thing, I don’t know if this actually gives it – or if it simply heightens your anxiety that something bad could happen.
Guess it simply proves that there’s nothing like fear – or sex – to sell a product.