Bed & Bombarded

When hospitality is the medium for the message

Recently, I awoke in an Ohio B&B to the portrait of a maniacally grinning man and had breakfast in the company of a Last Supper reproduction.

A week later, in an Oregon B&B, a bathroom info sheet noted, among many things, that the hand towels and q-tips were made from organic bamboo and the cleaning products were all natural and nontoxic. In the kitchen, a sign admonished me to wash my hands; not once, but twice.

In many ways, the ambiance of the two B&Bs where I stayed this summer couldn’t differ more. But both defied their alleged purpose—to let their guests kick back after a busy day—unless those guests ignored the onslaught of information, instructions and sales pitches posted throughout each house.

Two B&Bs don’t make a trend, but I wonder how many others also test the boundaries of hospitality by doubling as personalized staging areas where visitors may buy stuff, soak up proprietors’ convictions and do an unexpected household chore or two.

The first B&B, in an Akron residential neighborhood, was a bizarre shrine to Jesus, an AA founder who had lived nearby and the host’s late father as depicted in my bedroom. After a long day of bicycling, my friends and I arrived at the house, fearful that the host would charge us $25 each for being early, as he had threatened on the phone. He didn’t charge extra, but insisted on conducting an exhaustive home tour, noting that each room was named for a dead person dear to him. He refused our plea to let us rest first, holding us hostage to his family history.

Days later, in Portland for a wedding, I stayed with my family in a simply furnished B&B with white noise sound machines in each bedroom. It was in a hip district abundant with food trucks, weed and locally churned ice cream. Lest guests forget, they were reminded by a living room sign that “Love is a human right.” Also posted were instructions, accompanied by a tiny sponge in a plastic bag, on how to wipe away ants with dish soap. (For the record, no ants were spotted during our stay.) Another notice warned of a $30 penalty if we didn’t recycle food scraps properly.

Both B&Bs offered merchandise for sale. In Akron, guests could buy t-shirts emblazoned with the B&B’s name, locally made sodas, snacks and coffee, the latter an outrageous first in my B&B experience.

In Portland, our B&B served as a gallery for members of a local women’s collective to sell their artwork on the honor system through Venmo. Giant chocolate cookies were also available on the honor system with proceeds going to a children’s cause in Africa.

Perhaps taken singly, the signage and items for sale in each B&B were appropriate, if quirky and at times ripe for ridicule. Few if any living spaces in the B&B diaspora are entirely neutral in their decor, nor is there anything wrong with character. Besides, choosing a B&B is always a bit of a risk. But in both the Akron and Portland accommodations, the mixture of marketing and virtue signaling came across loud and clear as propaganda that no sound machine could mask.

In the Akron residence, the religious imagery and memorialization, together with a hint of menace, gave me the willies. I was more at ease in the Portland B&B. But there, I was bombarded by self-evident affirmations and appeals to invest in art by women. I agreed whole-heartedly with the proprietor’s support of trans people and gay marriage. Yet, I wondered why, if we were trusted to pay for a cookie on the honor system, it was necessary to be reminded that love is a human right?