Gratuity?

Mavis, our housekeeper, found this in the trash yesterday in one of the rooms at the motel that she was cleaning. I debated whether or not to call the guests, which is standard policy if they leave something behind, but considering the nature of the item and that it was in the trash I decided to not get involved. Not that I believe that marijuana should be illegal, but the law is the law and I wanted to stay out of that arena. I imagine it went into the trash by accident. I won't go into details about what I did with the items...

Guests leave a myriad of treasures behind on a regular basis. Food left behind goes to the housekeepers. Beer goes into my "fishing fridge" and later into the boat cooler. Clothes, if we cannot find owners to return them to, or if they went into the general laundry, go into the lost and found and after a few weeks unclaimed, they are washed and taken by staff or end up at Salvation Army. I take a trash bag full about once a month. We have a drawer full of phone chargers, camera chargers, and foreign currency converters which we try to recycle to needy persons. We have shipped clothes, eyeglasses, jewelry and even a purse with money, credit cards and passport to a guest from Czechoslovakia (we intercepted their American travels in North Carolina). The item that gave us the biggest laugh was a vibrator. No one wanted to go near that one, but we did giggle all day. But one item, that continually gets left behind, is pillows. I think guests are often attached to their own pillows and travel with them. As a rule, I throw them out. Bed bugs are a major problem in the hotel industry and I will not chance them being transported on a pillow and living large in my laundry room while I try to locate their owners. The most striking and disturbing thing I have learned is that often, these pillows are disgustingly dirty! Last week two very lovely middle aged women, who drove a nice car, were dressed beautifully and had the appearance of good hygiene, left a pillow that under the case, was about as filthy an item as I have ever seen. I didn't even want to touch it to toss it. Go figure??

I have left one item in a hotel. My very favorite Ralph Lauren classic black blazer in New Orleans after a girlfriend trip to Mardis Gras. I called immediately after discovering my loss, within a couple hours of checking out. I knew exactly where I left it hanging in the room on the back of the closet door. The hotel said that housekeeping had not seen it and it was never found. I still regret that loss, and that event has prompted me to make sure that we make every effort to return all legal substances to their rightful owner.