2232: Hotel Room Party

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Hotel Room Party

Title text: [proudly greeting the hotel manager at the door] "Did I do aa good job?"

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a MATTRESS SHREDDER. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

It is a common trope that really wild parties in hotel rooms, particularly by rock bands on tour, end up trashing that hotel room as crazy party goers break and spill things. Such parties are widely perceived to be very fun, because they got so out of control. In this comic, Cueball (together with Hairy, Ponytail, White Hat, Megan, and Blondie) is misunderstanding cause and effect and as he plans to throw a party where you trash a hotel room. Instead of planning a wild party, however, he is planning to calmly and deliberately trash the hotel room by assigning people to do damage. Unlike a real wild party, this is unlikely to be fun. Also, because Cueball is so organized, he is also planning for maintenance and cleaning services to undo the damage. In actual trash-a-hotel-room parties the party goers are so hungover or tired afterward that they don't clean up but leave the damage. This often results in rock bands being charged large amounts of money after the fact for the hotel to do the repairs.

In addition to rock bands, trashing of hotel rooms also featured in the Tailhook scandal of 1991, while trashing a home during a teenage party while parents are away, and the mad rush to clean up the damage/evidence before the parents return, is a common trope in teen movies.

Transcript

[ Hairy, Ponytail, Cueball, White Hat, Megan, and Blondie are standing in a line. Cueball is raising his left hand with his pointer finger extended and is facing his left. He is also pointing to the right. The other five are facing Cueball.]

Cueball: OK everyone, let's break into teams.

Cueball: Katie, get the wire cutters and start disassembling the TV. You two can strip the wallpaper. Mike and I will work on shredding the mattress.

Cueball: You, start shopping for maintenance and cleaning services. We don't want to leave the staff to deal with this.

[Caption below the panel]: It's my first time throwing one of those parties where you trash a hotel room and I want to make sure I get it right.

Trivia

• The title text to this comic originally read '[proudly greeting the hotel manager at the door] "Did I do aa good job?"' It is not clear if the 'aa' is a typo, or intentionally representing someone slurring their words because they are drunk or hung over from a party.
• Cueball gives instructions to a 'Mike' and a 'Katie' while giving instructions. Since Megan has a specific name, this suggests that either Ponytail or Blondie are named Katie, while either Hairy or White Hat are named Mike.

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Discussion

Is the "aa" in the hovertext intentional? 172.68.132.233 17:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't think so Duraludon (talk) 17:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Ii agree it's probably aa typo. -boB (talk) 18:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

The "aa" typo has been fixed at xkcd.com 172.68.34.154 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

And someone has fixed it here also --Kynde (talk) 14:33, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Should we rename Ponytail to Katie? IIRC she has been named such in several comicx 172.68.54.112 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

No we should not! Can you list all these other comics? I cannot remember any? Also it could be Blondie or Megan he names. Megan is our name here on explain xkcd not Randall's. --Kynde (talk) 14:33, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Just looked up. The name Katie has only been used in two other comics and there it was an unseen character that was named Katie! --Kynde (talk) 10:04, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

What I've been able to find online suggests that the Tailhook scandal of 1991 did not involve the removal of a wall between hotel rooms with a chainsaw - that happened at a previous Tailhook convention rather than the 1991 convention marred by the sexual assault scandal. I think it's improper to say this was associated with the Tailhook scandal of 1991. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 14:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixed it -boB (talk) 16:20, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Names like "Ponytail," "Megan," ,"Cueball" "White/Black Hat Guy" etc. date back long before explainxkcd. They were generated in the XKCD forum pages -- I'm not sure how many existed prior to the OneTrueThread. Cellocgw (talk) 16:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Did anyone else mentally follow "Did I do a good job?" with "Do I get to come home?" Mathmannix (talk) 18:18, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Uhh, can someone say the hovertext? I’m on a Mobile device. 162.158.123.29 21:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)Anonymize

Cueball refers to Mike and Katie by name, but "you" for the cleaning services. Does that mean anything? 172.70.135.32 19:46, 20 April 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

When he says you there are probably among those he points to. --Kynde (talk) 10:04, 10 March 2024 (UTC)