“A Luddite Confesses” by Glen Sorestad

I do not consider myself an ignorant man though I’ll admit to having done ignorant things. I make this disclaimer because, once again, I have somehow booked online a hotel room, assuming I was booking with the hotel itself, only to discover when I’d completed the deal, I had transacted this reservation with one of the many invasive booking websites and not with the hotel property.

I have done this before. Several times. And now I feel like a complete ignoramus. Whatever happened to Once bitten, twice shy? I feel both stupid and angry—with myself, of course. The first time should have been a learning experience. But it seems I failed to learn my lesson because, a mere year or so later, here I am, slapping my own face like Moe of the Stooges, having repeated the same goof with a website I had no intention of using, nor had any idea actually existed.

I believe I really must come completely clean in my confession and also disclose that I am a senior— to give you pause to recognize that the problem I’m laying bare for you is quite clearly not the only one I have. You might deem it least of my worries. Am I alone in this self-recrimination?

Perhaps there are people booking rooms online at this very moment who could care less about what website they are using, as long as they get a deal on the proper hotel and on the correct dates. But I always prefer my booking to be with the hotel—after all, they are the people who will attend to my needs—not some online predator that wants to charge my credit card upfront and has Draconian penalties for cancellations.

Caveat emptor— this should be the caution guiding any attempt to book a hotel on the internet. So, for the next while, sour with self-admonishment, I will slowly recoup my diminished self-worth, perhaps to the degree of again believing myself reasonably intelligent. But I have committed this same faux pas three times now, so whatever smugness I may once have harboured has been entirely pummelled out of me for all time by the unforgiving nature of the internet.