An Apology to the Customers of My Illegal Bed & Breakfast

Dear Persons Who Recently Enjoyed the Bucholz Bed & Breakfast Experience,

I'd like to apologize for your recent experience not enjoying the Bucholz Bed & Breakfast Experience.

First and foremost, you're going to need a bit of background information to digest what just happened to you, and why I'm sorry about it, and really, when you think about it, why I don't have to apologize at all, such an innocent misunderstanding it all was. At some point in the past few months, while struggling to pay off the debts accrued from the operations of my failed day care, I remembered that Disneyland existed. This lightning bolt, combined with the seemingly simple deduction that Disneyland must make a ton of money (well over a thousand dollars a month, I figure), led me to the solution to my dolla dolla problems. I would make another Disneyland and be on the road to Big Money Success.

But it turns out that Disney has hired a whole bunch of lawyers and politicians to step on the neck of game-changing entrepreneurs like myself, and after a couple unpleasant shouting matches while wearing a Winnie the Pooh costume, I had to rapidly scale back my plans. I ultimately settled on kind of a public domain Disneyland, of which the Bucholz Bed & Breakfast Experience was to be the first part.

Second and nearforemost, I realize now that I probably should have told you all of this before your stay. I was kind of hoping it would be a surprise, a well-taken one, the kind of delightful life experience you'd remember for the rest of your days.

But, yeah, no, that was a mistake. The surprise was a little too surprising, in retrospect, and had you known in advance, you could have mentally girded yourself, or at least been wearing less-nice clothes.

Third and midmost, there are several things I'm not sorry for. These include ...

I am not sorry about the confusion with breakfast. Serving it to you at night was obviously discomforting to you, but I had really brilliant, well-thought-out thematic reasons for this. I suppose I am a little sorry for my excuse for this at the time; that "this is when we eat breakfast in Canada" was laughably stupid. That you bought it so readily doesn't speak very highly of you, actually.

I am not sorry about the quality of the meal itself. Porridge obviously isn't normally done flambe, but I had the brandy on hand, I was maybe trying to show off a little, and it was of course brilliantly on-theme. Similarly, the "Canadian dessert porridge" was a masterstroke, and you really owed it more than one disgusted taste. If you'd stuck around just a tiny bit longer, you would have liked what I brought out next. Leaving early kind of wrecked what I was going for, actually.

I am definitely not sorry about the chair that collapsed underneath you after dinner. That was supposed to be the sturdy, too-hard chair, not the trick one, which makes me suspect you've had a little too much porridge in your time.

I am not sorry about the bedding. In fact, I kind of demand that you apologize to me. Yes, the first bed was four stacked sheets of plywood, which you rightly refused to sleep on. But the second bed I put you in was supposed to be too soft. That was supposed to be unacceptable to you. I had a third bed, a bed that was just right, that I'd gone to a ton of trouble to set up, which had to go to waste. I mean, help me out a little here.

It occurs to me now that Goldilocks was kind of an advanced theme to choose for my first foray into hoteling.

And it was my troubles with the theme, in particular its antagonists, which bring us, fourth and aftmost, to the things that I am actually sorry for.

I am sorry about putting a bear in your room. Please believe me when I say that this wasn't about trying to hurt you. It was merely intended to scare you, to teach you porridge appreciation, to communicate a valuable lesson about making do with what you have, and to hurt you a little bit.

I am sorry that the bear wasn't really aggressive enough, that you slept through her arrival to the room entirely, and that she tried to do likewise. In my defense, it's extremely difficult to tell how aggressive a bear will be when it's dressed up in people clothes because of how funny they look.

I am sorry for throwing porridge on you to try to coax the bear to feast upon your sleeping bodies.

I am sorry the porridge I threw on you was too hot.

I am sorry the porridge got into your wig and matted it against your face, partially blinding you.

I am sorry for previously sneaking into your room while you slept and putting a blond wig on you.

I am much, much more sorry for then putting a second, much, much more aggressive bear in your room.

I am sorry that your room only had one exit, blocked by two bears of varying aggression, making any heart-racing but ultimately enjoyable and Travelocity-review-boosting escape rather impossible. In my defense, this would have worked just fine if you'd been willing to go to the room with the just-right bed, which is an en suite with a fire escape.

I am not sorry for trying to distract the too-aggressive bear by throwing hot porridge on him, thus drawing his anger toward me. This was, I maintain, both an excellent and a brave idea, and would have really made me the hero of the hour, but for one thing ...

I am sorry that the third bear charged into the room after that. This one, an adolescent bear ...

... really seemed to like porridge, though, and considering all the porridge I'd been pretty carelessly spraying across your room, it would have been difficult keeping him out anyways.

But how lucky were we that the third bear was just the right level of aggressive? And that his insatiable love of porridge led him to immediately attack the porridge-soaked too-aggressive bear, giving you, me, and the not-aggressive-enough bear a chance to escape? Pretty darned lucky, I'll say.

I'm sorry that the just-aggressive-enough bear found the porridge on the too-aggressive bear's fur too cold, and the pair of them soon chased us out of there, down the hall, and into the just-right bedroom's bathroom.

I am sorry that the not-aggressive-enough bear got stuck in the window of the fire escape, blocking our only exit. She was too big.

I am sorry we had to hide out for the next two days in the just-right bedroom's bathroom while we waited for animal control to first believe what we were saying and then come rescue us.

I am sorry I'd been feeding the bears nothing but porridge for days by that point, which turns out to not be a great thing for their digestive health. I guess mainly ...

I am sorry the not-aggressive-enough bear's farts were too hot.

And that's about it. I hope that you and I are now "cool" and that you consider the Bucholz Bed & Breakfast Experience for your next stay in Canada (in 2014 we plan to remodel the entire thing in gingerbread). To that end, please find enclosed a coupon for 5 percent off your next stay. And please, please, don't bother returning the wig; it's my gift to you.

It fit you just right.

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and your best friend. Join him on Facebook or Twitter and make him reconsider that.