One of the perks of my job (Have wit – will travel) is that I am usually put up in fine accommodations. The parties bringing me in aren’t forced to put me up in five star hotels, but the great majority of time I get to spend my off hours resting in the lap of luxury. A few weekends ago I was thrown in to the crotch.
I am not blaming the group that booked me. Evidently it was the start of Elk hunting season and all the good rooms in town were taken. Which would lead one to the conclusion that there are either an awful lot of Elk hunters out there or this particular small town didn’t have any “good” rooms in the first place.
The fact of the matter is that the only room left in town was at a Days Inn. This establishment is so named because, God forbid, you should try to sleep there at night. I’m not complaining. If one more Elk hunter had arrived that weekend I would have had to find lodging in a manger.
The walls of this hotel were so thin that I could hear everything that happened in the room next to mine. And things started happening at five o’clock in the morning. I was in a sleep induced fog for the first half hour, so I’m not sure if they were praying or getting intimate, but I do know that they sure invoked the name of our Lord an awful lot.
These were the kind of people that apparently had no clue that other people might want to sleep in on a Sunday morning. They figured they were up, so inside voices were no longer needed. I wasn’t sure if they were both in the same room because, from the volume they used to shout at each other, I thought one of them might have been locked in the trunk of a car in the parking lot.
Then there’s the design of the room. The builders strategically placed the heater directly under the thick window curtains so that the heat shot straight up – making the glass nice and toasty but leaving the rest of the room close to freezing.
The sink was next to the bed. Call me crazy, but I sort of prefer it in the bathroom.
Some time over the past century the mirror frame over the sink had fallen off, so they re-glued it back on. Crooked. Really crooked. Not-even-close-to-plum-crooked. Because, as you know, anything worth doing is worth giving to a minimum wage employee who can’t wait to get off work so they can go Elk hunting.
The sole decoration in the bathroom was a framed 3″ by 3″ sea shell. It was as if the owners of the hotel wanted to rub your nose in the fact that you were stuck in their God-forsaken town and, because you could only afford to stay in their hell-hole, there was no way you’d ever be able to spring for a vacation at the beach.
The advertised “pool” was about as big as your average Jacuzzi. Their hot tub was big enough to hold two small Chihuahuas if they only put their front paws in.
The highlight of my stay? Their waffle maker made waffles in the shape of Texas. Which I used to cover my ears to drown out the yelling match of the people in the next room.
When I checked out, the Clerk begged me to take him with me. He quickly stammered that he was just kidding but his begging eyes told me he was not. I gave him my Texas waffle earplugs and drove off before he could stow away in my luggage.
