Back in April, I travelled to Moncton on business and stayed at a hotel where I found this pamphlet on the desk in my room:
As you can see, they didn’t go for more delicate phrasing like “What to do in the event of a hotel fire”. The title’s much closer to “How to not die while staying at our establishment.”
The French don’t have it any easier. The title they see translates to “Hotel Fires!! What to do to stay alive?”
Many of the numbered points in the pamphlet don’t simply use the word “fire”, but accent it with two exclamation marks: “Fire!! in your room” and “Fire!! in another part of the building” are two examples. Perhaps the writer took some inspiration from the band Panic! at the Disco.
“Few people are burned to death in fires.” This is true – in a fire, smoke inhalation is far more likely to (ahem) smoke you than the actual fire itself. I wasn’t disturbed by reading this fact, but I can see some hotel guests being a bit disturbed by being told which method of death was the more likely one.
For some reason, point number seven in the pamphlet reminds me of what just about every electrician trying to make small talk while doing repairs has said to a customer at one time or another, often with a country-fried drawl: “It ain’t the volts that kills ya, it’s the amps!”
4 replies on “You Can Leave Any Time You Like, But You Might Not Check Out”
Got your attention though didn’t it 🙂 Reminds me of the story of the Airline Steward who began their safety pitch with “You are all going to die….” and then a long pause before continuing with “…in the case of an accident unless you listen to me”.
Well, that pamphlet was certainly giddy-goat-proof.
Seems to me that somebody took from inspiration from Fight Club.
i love this.