Uh, another story time and this one is...upsetting.

It’s about the one time I really tested the high-end concierge and won, because I asked for them to send me an s&m package. I had to know how deep the bullshit went. https://twitter.com/tadbo/status/1248365952795738112

I was booked in to speak to Australian economists and accountants. I want to say maybe Stiglitz was the keynote? I’d have to find my notes.

Anyway the place was called The Liberty, A Luxury Collection Hotel and it was in Boston so I didn’t think anything of it

Like obviously Boston and liberty go together branding-wise right

Only

Folks, it’s a fucking luxury prison. It is a prison that was so known for human rights violations that the feds shut it down in 1979.

It’s historical landmark so you can’t raze it, you have to keep it up

Apparently there was years of “what the fuck do we do with the empty prison in prime real estate location” and eventually someone got the bright idea to have Sheraton buy it and convert it while theming it, and I swear I am not kidding, you can google it, as a prison luxury hotel

Their outdoor bar is called the yard. Their indoor bar is called the clink and your bill comes attached to a 5x8 postcard of famous people’s mugshots with a quote. I got Frank Sinatra and the quote was “the broad deserved it.”

I still have the card.

The main cell block is now the foyer, their chandelier is made up of no-shit the old balls and chains. You are checked in at the guard windows.

The do not disturb is an iron ring with a ribbon that says “solitary” in satin stitching.

The complimentary bikes are bright orange.

I...lost my shit entirely. I had brunch before my speech on cell block B. It was possibly the most surreal thing I’ve experienced in nearly a decade of watching rich people do rich people things.

So obviously I ask the organizers did they know, they’re foreign and maybe not

And here’s the Aussie sense of humor

They thought it was a brilliant gimmick to have a bunch of australians have a conference in a prison given the origins of white Australia

Anyway so I’m here and I’m stuck here and what the shit else was I gonna do but call the concierge and ask did they have handcuffs because I just NEEDED TO KNOW

Gentle readers, this poor concierge had to explain to me, for what sounded like the billionth time, that they could not for liability reasons give anyone in the luxury prison a set of handcuffs

Anyway of all the places I’ve been to include armed standoffs against the feds and tear gas in the streets of St. Louis, the fucking luxury prison broke my brain the hardest.

Rich people are completely round the bend bonkers.