A Night at the Facebook Hotel

I knew something was wrong as soon as I entered the hotel. I signed in at the front desk and the clerk assumed a huge, cheerful smile.

“Welcome to the Facebook Hotel!” he said. “Your dog died six years ago today!”

After forcing me to look at four photos of my departed dog as a puppy, he handed over my room key. I stepped onto the elevator with a familiar face—a friend from high school jazz band? Or maybe a former weed dealer? I couldn’t be sure.

“I don’t normally talk about politics,” he said, as my heart sank. “But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”

After 45 minutes and 317 references to Benito Mussolini, he asked what I thought. Before I could say anything, another guy on the elevator called him a libtard crybaby and started screaming “#MAGA” until he got distracted by a kitten who looked marginally like Jimmy Fallon.

A bellboy led me to my room and asked if I would donate $5 to a campaign to support the Constitutional Do-Over Campaign being led by Vermin Supreme. I handed over the money, and he clarified that some of the money would be used to paint flame decals on his Toyota Prius.

My room was small and unpleasant, but phone calls to other rooms were free. On the television was CNNN, a news network founded by Lithuanian hoodlums, which was airing a story about Donald Trump’s call to legalize marrying your daughter. Every single one of the commercials advertised the exact brand of Keurig machine that I had bought three weeks ago.

What hell had I entered?

I tried to get some sleep, but the soft glow of the hotel kept me awake. I wandered down the hallway and into the ballroom, where 158 of my friends were all getting married on the same weekend.

“I’m not just marrying my husband,” said the cousin of a former coworker I had met at a St. Patrick’s Day kegger in 2007. “I’m marrying my best friend.”

I backed out of the ballroom and headed to the bar.

“You have to read this article in ThinkProgress,” a man at the bar said.

“You have to read this article in ThinkProgress,” said the woman sitting next to him.

“You have to read this article in ThinkProgress,” said the bartender.

“You have to read this article on MajestyCannon.Net,” my great aunt said. “There’s major new evidence that Hillary Clinton killed Leonard Cohen.”

I fled the bar and settled into a solo booth at the hotel’s restaurant. I had grabbed a copy of the hotel newspaper, which sought to “serve up a curated list of the most important stories of the day.” Today’s top story was about a housewife in Topeka releasing a Christmas-themed parody video of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” called “Who Let the Millennials Out?” The video had been viewed 326 million times.

An enthusiastic waiter approached.

“The chef recommends our marshmallow-crusted churro corn dog,” he said. “It tastes disgusting, but the dish looks great if you watch the chef prepare it from an overhead angle at 2X speed with playful music in the background.”

By this time I was pulling out my phone to check other hotel options. The Hotel Twitter offered free comedy shows, but the audience was filled with hecklers hurling death threats while the bouncers focused on lighting design. The Hotel Pinterest catered mainly to brides-to-be and doomsday preppers. I drove over to the Snapchat Inn, but couldn’t even figure out where the door was.

“I AM LEAVING THE FACEBOOK HOTEL TO LEAD A MORE MEANINGFUL, MONASTIC LIFESTYLE,” I announced to no one in particular. But I hadn’t even made it to the parking lot before I had turned around and headed back inside.

If I was stuck at the Facebook Hotel, I might as well join the masses.

“The DNC is covering up a child sex ring,” I whispered to a bewildered newcomer in the lobby. “Elizabeth Warren is actually a North Korean man named Kim.”

“What?” the man said. “No, she—”

“Here’s a photo of your ex-girlfriend having fun at Disneyland with a man who is stronger than you,” I said.

And before the man could complain that he really didn’t want to see the photo, I was gone. There were libtard crybabies to scream at.