The Zanesville Waffle Iron Prediction for Election 2012

During our cross-country road trip this summer, one of the biggest distinctions between “blue states” and “red states” was seen at breakfast. Specifically, the policies governing the hotel waffle iron.

Free breakfast was offered at all but the most expensive hotel we stayed at during our trip. Each hotel put a slightly different spin on the offerings. There were staples like juice, coffee and cereal. Sometimes there were pastries, muffins and toast. Other times toaster waffles and pancakes. But typically we had the fix-your-own fresh waffles or oatmeal, which were delicious.

Breakfast was served typically between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., which sounds generous but when you factor in arriving late from a long drive the night before, waking and dressing 3 small children in addition to ourselves, it was a struggle to get down to breakfast every morning before it closed. The women (it was always women for some reason) who supervised the breakfast room at our various hotels were very strict about closing up the breakfast room at 10:00 a.m. 15 minutes before 10, they started to put all the food away and at 10 sharp, the diving doors closing off the breakfast are were tightly shut. It didn’t matter whether 20 guests sat down to breakfast at 9:40 a.m., if it was a lazy Sunday morning or if someone was just sauntering toward the area to get a second cup of coffee, if it was 10:00 a.m., the doors were shut! We joked that the “breakfast lady” was my nemesis.

Some hotels offered breakfast bags that you could grab and go if you were in a rush, but trying to get these was almost impossible. They weren’t offered on the weekends and they seemed to be offered only at certain times. So, if you felt like you weren’t going to make it to breakfast, your only option was to load up some plates quickly and haul it back to your room. We had to pull this trick a few times and I had to laugh once when I was the designated breakfast hunter only to cross paths in the elevator with a hastily dressed, bleary-eyed French guest doing the same thing on a weekend morning.

Even though all states followed the 10 a.m. breakfast closure policy, it was interesting to see how blue and red states implemented this policy.

In red states, it seemed that someone (the hotel manager? the breakfast lady?) determined that there would be a set amount of food provided for breakfast and once it was gone, it was gone. So, if you arrived at breakfast at 9:30 and wanted a waffle, you went over to find that the waffle mix was drained dry. If you were lucky, you might scoop out a few tablespoons to get half a waffle. (If there were a lot of Europeans staying at the hotel, the waffle mix was usually safe but the shortages shifted to the oatmeal bowl.)

If you happened to get the last dregs of the waffle mix, it made for a very awkward moment. First, you feel great that you managed to scoop out one last waffle from the dry bowl, but then, one more person comes in the waffle line, sometimes a child, notices the empty waffle mix, expresses disappointment and looks at you, the last waffle recipient and the symbol of all waffle eaters of the world, with contempt. It’s really hard to stand there cooking your waffle knowing that someone else has to go without. Sometimes we were the ones who went without.

Now of course, no one is going to go hungry. There were plenty of other things to eat — at least cereal and toast and usually more, like eggs or fruit. And, of course, you could always get up earlier if you really wanted that waffle . . . but truthfully, the waffles are good, but they aren’t worth sacrificing sleep over.

Rationing the waffles, however, transformed what should be a fun activity (eating free breakfast) into this guilt-ridden, sad experience. You couldn’t help but think, “We are all paying guests of this hotel. We all deserve a waffle. Why should receiving a waffle be tied to what hour of the morning you eat your breakfast? It might cost 20 cents in waffle mix to make one more waffle. Why is this hotel so stingy with the waffle mix?”

In a blue state, the breakfast policies were completely different. If 20 guests began breakfast at 9:30 a.m., the breakfast ladies checked to make sure there was enough of everything. If the waffle mix was empty, they took 2 minutes to go in the back to grab the huge pre-mixed container of waffle mix and poured just enough into the dispenser so that everyone who wanted a waffle could have one. 10 minutes before the breakfast doors were closed, they flicked the lights to issue a “last call” to make sure that you could grab that refill or to-go muffin. Then they closed the doors gently at 10:00 a.m. when breakfast was over.

Now, you might say that all these extra breakfasts might be hurting the hotel’s bottom line. Saving 20 cents here and 20 cents there adds up! These are hard economic times after all. But interestingly, the hotels with the most business were the ones in blue states. They were packed with people and from all appearances were doing twice the business of the stingy hotels. Whatever extra they were spending on breakfast, they more than made up for on increased room rentals.

So, when we crossed into the state of Ohio, another “battleground” state like Virginia (and, according to NBC crucial to the election), I joked to my husband that I was going to predict the outcome of the presidential election based on the hotel’s waffle iron policy. We were running late that morning so he was the designated breakfast hunter. I made him recount in exacting detail what he experienced. This was his report.

The Zanesville Waffle Iron Prediction for The 2012 Presidential Election

“I went down to breakfast. There were the usual offerings and a television on. I approached the waffle iron. The waffle mix dispenser was empty. The television streamed a series of ads attacking President Obama. I tried to scrape out the dregs but determined there wasn’t enough.

I was about to give up when the breakfast lady appeared.

‘Oh, is that out?’ she said.

She went in the back and filled it up with a little more waffle mix, commenting

“That’s the second time I refilled that this morning.”

Will the waffle iron be accurate? Time will tell.