Dear World,
I have found a nice storage locker for my self. Details are, let’s just say, fuzzy: strobing, traumatized, subjective, slurring, radically unpleasant. A kind of amber womb. Sheets like ski runs. Oopsy-daisy. I appear to be on a floor of some kind. In a last flicker of decency, I have wound up here rather than driving 100 miles to visit a friend, as promised, because I knew I was endangering people. I will call tomorrow and lie.
Dear World,
You are awesome. I am sitting with friends of mine, in lounge chairs outside our rooms. We are spending a weekend in a town in the Midwest. We do this every year. We seek grottos, lonely private sculpture gardens, places where we can hide messages in Tupperware containers, abandoned buildings, houses which have been crashed into by rocks and turned into tourist attractions, breakfast joints, odd intersections and dead-ends, churches, supper clubs, stories of locust invasions, grave sites, the rumored location of the Garden of Eden, and museums filled with phones, antique soaps, 19th century medical scenes, or polish crafts.
-Kevin Fenton of St Paul, MN
http://unprintableversion.typepad.com/
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
last bucket in numbville
I was 17 years old and a senior in high school. My god parents (Fred and Cheryl Mithouer) were to be given a training session in Hong Kong for new innovative ways of practicing massage. They had a son named Seth who had just recently been barmitzvahed. He was chubby, short and had braces. I was skinny, tall, and unproudly adorned a face consumed of acne. My parents and Seth’s decided it would be great for Seth and I to travel around China with a guide for some months to then meet Fred and Cheryl in Hong Kong to end our trip. This trip by our hippy parents was to be our coming of age experience.
Seth and I first arrived in Beijing to meet with our guide Mr. Zang (which translates to excellent in Mandarin but in reality he embodied the antithesis of the word—Just like people named Joy are so seldom joyful). We had Zang who didn’t speak English buy us pre paid tickets on shitty trains, shitty camels, and shitty buses taking us all over the “for the love of god don’t go there” backwoods parts of China. 4 days into our trip Seth and I got a note under our door saying in broken English “my wife dislikes you- I leaving now– happy holiday.” This chubby kid barely at 13 and I of 17 were stuck in the middle of Nowhere Fucksville China without a clue and no guide. We didn’t speak a dick of Chinese nor were our metabolic and digestive systems prepared for China’s bacteria and other air /food born nasties.
Hotel Experience:
After a long day of site seeing of all the absolute wrong stuff to see in Xian (mutant freak show in a converted buddhist temple and being followed by an old lady trying to sell us half eaten pomegranates), Seth and I discovered a KFC. An amazing fucking sent from god KFC. You see Seth and I’s trip thus far had consisted of a diet of wrong, parts of animals that even the most famished Hyenas would leave behind, sauces that made trash water leaking from a glad bag seem savory. This KFC was as close to god as we could have ever find, a taste of the ferociously missed familiarity of home and a taste of nutrition (as scary as that sounds). Seth and I bought buckets and buckets of chicken -- 6 in total. We planned out how we were to savor our coveted booty. We were to scarf one bucket and then save the rest to travel with, hopefully providing us with enough rations for week —just enough to make it Hong Kong where it knowingly possessed the holy trinity of food—McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. We got to our hotel and immediately stuffed our faces. Cramping and digesting we noticed that we were not alone in our disgusting hotel room. We had cockroaches. These cockroaches came in numbers, big numbers, numbers higher than I could count and they were super freakishly large at that. The cockroaches reached in sizes that of a Pringles chip. Seth and I panicked at the site of these creatures all around us like lions circling two sick and really slow pigs. I grabbed my bug spray and doused them. My attempt at chemical warfare came to no avail. Seth and I luckily had lighters so that we could smoke opium with (helped pass the time) -- and we took our drug lighters and combined them with bug spray forming mini blow torches unleashing a fiery hell upon the cockroaches. With some flame plus the sole of a boot the numbers began to diminish. Roaches then took upon a new strategy of escape by crawling underneath our wallpaper like a mouse under a rug—little bumps fleeing from death. We got em—We got them all! Relieved and hours later Seth and I retired still holding onto our joy of obtaining week’s full of beautiful KFC future and victory of slaying our enemies. Morning came and we felt refreshed and wonderfully constipated from our KFC (our entire China trip up until KFC consisted of vomiting up and having diarrhea from Chinese cuisine -- thus constipation was a welcomed friend.) We looked around to see if our enemies the cockroaches were still dead and gone --A sigh and relief to find they were no more in the room. For most KFC for dinner and then cold KFC for breakfast would seem like suicide but to us it was a beautiful option. Seth grabbed one of our buckets to start our breakfast feast—in a chubby braces whistling shriek Seth dropped the bucket. As it fell to the floor in slow motion I heart crushed then turned to horror as dozen of cockroaches spilled onto the stained carpet. The cockroaches had devoured the entire remains of our chicken bucket. No bones no sweet grease residue just the writhing and chirping cockroaches. In shock we watched them all scurry away from the bucket into the walls, into their evil dens. I said to Seth, “Let's not freak. They got to one bucket but we still have four more buckets and the odds of them all getting through 4 buckets surely must be impossible." We then grabbed a bucket, dropped it in horror and then moved to the next. Each time we found nothing left but the enemy inside our buckets. As each bucket’s examination came, we found ourselves going through all the typical stages of emotion when dealing with the loss of a loved one. Our emotional train finally stopped on the last bucket in numbville. I only now at the age of 31 can speak of our horror. And when memorial day comes around I can't help but think of our fallen hero KFC on that fateful day.
One more hotel story for the road.
I was 6 yrs old, my sister 3. We were staying at a motel. Our parents were in another room so they could hump. I found a gun under my bed. My sister and I played with it. I then accidentally murdered my sister. The end
Ok the first story is true. The second story is not—but could be a great made for tv movie on the Lifetime network.
-Drew Beam of Brooklyn, NY
www.drewbeam.com
Seth and I first arrived in Beijing to meet with our guide Mr. Zang (which translates to excellent in Mandarin but in reality he embodied the antithesis of the word—Just like people named Joy are so seldom joyful). We had Zang who didn’t speak English buy us pre paid tickets on shitty trains, shitty camels, and shitty buses taking us all over the “for the love of god don’t go there” backwoods parts of China. 4 days into our trip Seth and I got a note under our door saying in broken English “my wife dislikes you- I leaving now– happy holiday.” This chubby kid barely at 13 and I of 17 were stuck in the middle of Nowhere Fucksville China without a clue and no guide. We didn’t speak a dick of Chinese nor were our metabolic and digestive systems prepared for China’s bacteria and other air /food born nasties.
Hotel Experience:
After a long day of site seeing of all the absolute wrong stuff to see in Xian (mutant freak show in a converted buddhist temple and being followed by an old lady trying to sell us half eaten pomegranates), Seth and I discovered a KFC. An amazing fucking sent from god KFC. You see Seth and I’s trip thus far had consisted of a diet of wrong, parts of animals that even the most famished Hyenas would leave behind, sauces that made trash water leaking from a glad bag seem savory. This KFC was as close to god as we could have ever find, a taste of the ferociously missed familiarity of home and a taste of nutrition (as scary as that sounds). Seth and I bought buckets and buckets of chicken -- 6 in total. We planned out how we were to savor our coveted booty. We were to scarf one bucket and then save the rest to travel with, hopefully providing us with enough rations for week —just enough to make it Hong Kong where it knowingly possessed the holy trinity of food—McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. We got to our hotel and immediately stuffed our faces. Cramping and digesting we noticed that we were not alone in our disgusting hotel room. We had cockroaches. These cockroaches came in numbers, big numbers, numbers higher than I could count and they were super freakishly large at that. The cockroaches reached in sizes that of a Pringles chip. Seth and I panicked at the site of these creatures all around us like lions circling two sick and really slow pigs. I grabbed my bug spray and doused them. My attempt at chemical warfare came to no avail. Seth and I luckily had lighters so that we could smoke opium with (helped pass the time) -- and we took our drug lighters and combined them with bug spray forming mini blow torches unleashing a fiery hell upon the cockroaches. With some flame plus the sole of a boot the numbers began to diminish. Roaches then took upon a new strategy of escape by crawling underneath our wallpaper like a mouse under a rug—little bumps fleeing from death. We got em—We got them all! Relieved and hours later Seth and I retired still holding onto our joy of obtaining week’s full of beautiful KFC future and victory of slaying our enemies. Morning came and we felt refreshed and wonderfully constipated from our KFC (our entire China trip up until KFC consisted of vomiting up and having diarrhea from Chinese cuisine -- thus constipation was a welcomed friend.) We looked around to see if our enemies the cockroaches were still dead and gone --A sigh and relief to find they were no more in the room. For most KFC for dinner and then cold KFC for breakfast would seem like suicide but to us it was a beautiful option. Seth grabbed one of our buckets to start our breakfast feast—in a chubby braces whistling shriek Seth dropped the bucket. As it fell to the floor in slow motion I heart crushed then turned to horror as dozen of cockroaches spilled onto the stained carpet. The cockroaches had devoured the entire remains of our chicken bucket. No bones no sweet grease residue just the writhing and chirping cockroaches. In shock we watched them all scurry away from the bucket into the walls, into their evil dens. I said to Seth, “Let's not freak. They got to one bucket but we still have four more buckets and the odds of them all getting through 4 buckets surely must be impossible." We then grabbed a bucket, dropped it in horror and then moved to the next. Each time we found nothing left but the enemy inside our buckets. As each bucket’s examination came, we found ourselves going through all the typical stages of emotion when dealing with the loss of a loved one. Our emotional train finally stopped on the last bucket in numbville. I only now at the age of 31 can speak of our horror. And when memorial day comes around I can't help but think of our fallen hero KFC on that fateful day.
One more hotel story for the road.
I was 6 yrs old, my sister 3. We were staying at a motel. Our parents were in another room so they could hump. I found a gun under my bed. My sister and I played with it. I then accidentally murdered my sister. The end
Ok the first story is true. The second story is not—but could be a great made for tv movie on the Lifetime network.
-Drew Beam of Brooklyn, NY
www.drewbeam.com
Saturday, September 13, 2008
wild, wonderful west virginia
When Matthew McConaughey was promoting the movie We Are Marshall, as an alumnus of Marshall University and a celebrity writer, I was invited to the school's campus in Huntington, WV to watch a football game and interview him from the sidelines. Because it all happened last minute, all the hotels were booked by the visiting football team and fans from out-of-town, so the movie studio put everyone up in a crappy Days Inn.
I should have known I was in for a treat when I checked in and the girl at the desk described my room as "up on the second floor overlooking McDonalds." I wasn't expecting an ocean view -- as if there was one on the landlocked state -- but to tout the view of the Golden Arches?
The room was definitely a "sleep with a chair propped against the door" type of accommodation. I put towels on top of the sheets. There were no fewer than 10 holes in the carpet, which had to have been bought from a second-hand store. Despite this, there was a sign in the room -- laminated! -- which listed the prices of everything in case I decided to steal anything. And we're not just talking about the TV ($275), it listed the prices of the full and fitted sheets, washcloths, alarm clock, etc. I'd never seen anything like that in my life!
But the best was at 3am in the morning when I woke up during a nasty storm because water was literally pouring through the ceiling. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was dreaming, then I did what any seasoned New Yorker would do – I grabbed a trash can, put it under the leak, moved my laptop and suitcase to the other side of the room and climbed back into bed to sleep on my $10 sheets.
An hour later, the water was coming down from another spot, then another. Luckily, they gave me three $5 trash cans which caught the rain.
When I checked out a few hours later, I told the girl at the front desk that there was a major leak in my room. She just looked at me, then added it to a list of other complaints I assume she received that morning upon check out. On the list: an alarm clock wasn't working in room 212, a light bulb was out in room 106… Then she calmly wrote: "Water pouring through ceiling in 326."
Apparently the dam breaking above my head didn't classify as an emergency in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
For your amusement, the price list is below.
-Suzy Byrne of Irvington, NY
I should have known I was in for a treat when I checked in and the girl at the desk described my room as "up on the second floor overlooking McDonalds." I wasn't expecting an ocean view -- as if there was one on the landlocked state -- but to tout the view of the Golden Arches?
The room was definitely a "sleep with a chair propped against the door" type of accommodation. I put towels on top of the sheets. There were no fewer than 10 holes in the carpet, which had to have been bought from a second-hand store. Despite this, there was a sign in the room -- laminated! -- which listed the prices of everything in case I decided to steal anything. And we're not just talking about the TV ($275), it listed the prices of the full and fitted sheets, washcloths, alarm clock, etc. I'd never seen anything like that in my life!
But the best was at 3am in the morning when I woke up during a nasty storm because water was literally pouring through the ceiling. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was dreaming, then I did what any seasoned New Yorker would do – I grabbed a trash can, put it under the leak, moved my laptop and suitcase to the other side of the room and climbed back into bed to sleep on my $10 sheets.
An hour later, the water was coming down from another spot, then another. Luckily, they gave me three $5 trash cans which caught the rain.
When I checked out a few hours later, I told the girl at the front desk that there was a major leak in my room. She just looked at me, then added it to a list of other complaints I assume she received that morning upon check out. On the list: an alarm clock wasn't working in room 212, a light bulb was out in room 106… Then she calmly wrote: "Water pouring through ceiling in 326."
Apparently the dam breaking above my head didn't classify as an emergency in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
For your amusement, the price list is below.
-Suzy Byrne of Irvington, NY
Friday, September 12, 2008
anymore
Touring with a ballet company, in a small nowhere town in rural Washington state, we were forced to stay in a roadside motel much like a Motel 6. We walked into our room which smelled like years of filth covered up by industrial cleaner. The rugs were heavily stained, lamp shades dented and curtains tattered. The highlight was the crumpled paper sign sitting on the bathroom sink which read, "Hunters, please don't use the bath tubs to clean deer anymore."
Oy!
-Kel Christofferson of New York, NY
Oy!
-Kel Christofferson of New York, NY
Thursday, September 11, 2008
the only thing missing
We were positive that the hotel we were about to stop at would give us a decent price. It was, after all, outside Seattle’s city limits. My husband, Jeff, drove our little black car up to the office door and I jumped out, eager to check in. We had spent the entire day on a friend’s ski boat on Lake Washington. We were exhausted from being in the heat and playing in the cold water. We had forgotten to pack a lunch for the day, too, so by the time we left the lake, it was evening and we were really hungry.
As I pushed open the hotel’s heavy door, cool air blew on my face and I realized I hadn’t had a break from the sun all day. The air felt wonderful. The hotel seemed to be a diamond in the rough. The outside of it was non-spectacular—which we figured meant an okay price. I was shocked, once inside, to be surrounded by new furniture, decorations and artsy flourishings. I breathed in new-carpet-smell, and noticed an entire wall made of glass dedicated to housing large, bright-colored fish—this place had undergone a beautiful remodel. The furniture was my favorite part. I decided we’d be willing to stay here even if the price was a little spendy. I loved the round, orange couches and the squiggly bright colors on the hip, new throw rugs. Even the hanging, retro lamps made me want to splurge a little. I approached the front desk noticing that there were only young people hanging around the lobby. Three guys with reflective, shaved heads sat in a perfect row at the computers, two girls sat close together on a couch in the back and talked quietly, and the front desk person looked like someone I’d seen in a local band recently.
“The rooms start at $300,” he said. I swallowed and looked him in the eye. I was not prepared for that price. Giving him the look I had practiced numerous times with my husband, I fluttered my eyelashes just slightly and asked if he had any discounts for me.
Just at the moment when I was enjoying my own charming abilities, his cell phone rang loudly and he immediately lost his connection to me and grabbed his phone. After waiting for several minutes while he talked to someone about band equipment, I decided that he was rude, and I didn’t want to give him our business. Just as I decided it wasn’t worth the wait to hear if he had any discounts, one of the guys on a computer gave me a look as if to say, “That guy is crazy!” I took it as validation in leaving.
“Sorry, honey, we’re not staying here.” I said when I returned to the car. I told him the details and we decided to head north, further out of town.
“I’m hungry, aren’t you?” Jeff asked over the loud Tusk album. “We forgot to eat lunch, didn’t we? I ate some chips on the boat but they were too salty.”
“I had some carrot sticks but I felt bad about forgetting to bring a lunch. They didn’t have that much food, anyway. Now I’m starving!”
Eventually, I got grumpy. We started discussing if we should eat first, or find a hotel first. We argued back and forth about this, and then agreed that whatever we came to first was where we would stop. But we wouldn’t settle for fast food or a cheap, one-story hotel.
When we found ourselves far north on Aurora Avenue, things started feeling a little creepy. I think we both realized that we’d gone too far, but no one said anything. I turned down the music.
The street was dark and seemed to have an unusual amount of cars with tinted windows and loud stereos. A few girls were out walking and each one held a beverage in a paper sack, and wore similar, short mini skirts and high heels. It dawned on us that we were probably not in the best area of town and that a hotel out here was a really bad idea. We talked about returning to the orange-decorated, hip hotel. For some reason, we had lost interest in trying to find a nice place and a decent price.
We decided to turn around and head south on Aurora Avenue when all of a sudden a white tower stood before us on the right side of the road. It appeared to be a brand new hotel, with beautiful white stucco walls lit up by a series of pretty lights. There were plush, green bushes spaced evenly all around the driveway, and it looked sharp, so we decided to end our hotel search here.
We learned on our honeymoon, two years ago in Belize City, that if you are in a bad part of town, you can always stay locked up in your room. Jeff pulled into the small lot at the front door to the hotel. I jumped out, looked back at Jeff and winked, then walked confidently into what I assumed would be our lodging for the night.
The young guy at the front desk was watching me when I walked in. “Can I help you?” Covered in tattoos with symbols, numbers and strange diagrams, his eyes met mine. I looked him over quickly and didn’t feel like his tattoos fit the innocence I perceived right away in his light, blue eyes.
“Do you have a room available tonight?” I asked without batting my eyes at him. I scanned the lobby. There was a giant sign that read, “NO SMOKING. NO PETS” and a small counter with two coffee thermoses and a plate of organized sugar packets.
“It’s $60 for the night and I can put you on the third floor away from the street. Is a queen-sized bed okay?” he asked. His voice was soft and friendly, and I pictured him for a moment with white arms.
“We’ll take it! Let me go outside and check with my husband first. I’ll be right back.”
“It’s only $60 a night! I can’t believe it! Can we check in and then go get some food? Maybe we can just order a pizza and have it delivered.” I was hyper and excited to have found a place. It was 9:30 pm and I was starving, but somehow, I wasn’t grumpy anymore—it must have been a second wind.
“Let’s do it.” Jeff agreed. I grabbed my wallet and skipped inside to pay for our room.
After paying, we drove to the back of the hotel and into the “underground parking” area, which was ground level parking underneath the second story. We parked and looked around us. The lights were dim and yellow, and we both secretly noticed that our little black car was the nicest one in the lot.
“This car looks like it’s been through a fire!” Its roof was missing and replaced with duct tape. Jeff nodded but didn’t say anything. The other cars seemed really out of date and a few looked as if they hadn’t moved in months. When we gathered our luggage, we stepped up onto the walkway and noticed someone exhibiting strange behavior. A homeless man was pretending to wash the windshield of a car we had overlooked. It was a brand new Mercedes convertible with shiny silver hubcaps. The man in question had a dirty rag that he dipped into a plastic bag and then pretended to scrub the glass windshield of the Mercedes. It looked like he was hardly touching the glass, however, and he looked nervous as we walked by. Jeff and I glanced at each other and kept walking. I made up a silly question and pretended to be pre-occupied by Jeff’s answer until we were safe inside. We both let out a sigh at the same time and set our luggage down in the hallway. I raced him to the back window to spy on the man out in the parking lot. As we both had secretly suspected, he was no longer at the windshield, but walking slowly around the Mercedes looking inside of it with its top down. We whispered to each other and decided that we should go upstairs to our room. We had no valuables in our car and neither of us felt like doing anything about that guy.
We entered the elevator and pushed the button to the third floor. The doors closed and graffiti surrounded us on all sides. The inside of the entire elevator was covered with graffiti-not spray painted, but rather all four walls had been keyed from top to bottom. We rolled our eyes at each other and smiled. We were at last checked in and done looking for a hotel. When the elevator opened at the third floor we were immediately greeted with the stench of thick cigarette smoke like you would smell at a small bar with no airflow.
“The sign said ‘NO SMOKING’!” I told Jeff. “I can’t believe it! It reeks up here!”
“Our room better not smell like this…” Jeff’s voice trailed off as a door opened and two women stepped into the hallway, obviously intoxicated. The stench of cigarette smoke increased as we walked past their room. I tried casually peeking into their room but someone was on the other side of the door pushing it shut. Silently, we arrived at the last door on the left, and swiped our key card.
Having been in the car for hours, looking for a place to eat and a place to stay, I had put off using the last available restroom we had access to earlier in the day. The power of suggestion of having my own little bathroom overwhelmed me as I pushed the door open to our room. All of a sudden I had to pee immediately or I was going to explode. I shoved my luggage into the small room and flicked the light switch on. Nothing happened. I saw the shadow of a lamp sitting on a small entertainment center and quickly pushed the button to turn it on. Nothing happened. There was a tiny little kitchen area with a small, unplugged refrigerator sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, and I saw another light switch and flicked it. Nothing happened. I could feel a flow of frustrated heat start in my chest; move through my neck and into my face. I had to pee but I was angry that the lights didn’t work. Jeff had set his luggage down in the middle of the room and was fidgeting with the television remote by the light of the outside street lamp. I had to pee!
“Ughhhhhh!” I let out an angry sigh and grabbed the doorknob to the closed bathroom door. I would deal with the light situation after I relieved myself. The light switch worked in the bathroom but I wished it hadn’t. The bathroom was filthy. The first thing I noticed looking at the toilet seat that I was about to sit down on, was that it was covered in little drops of light yellow liquid. “Great,” I thought to myself, “someone peed on the toilet.” I almost decided to not use it, but I was seriously hurting. I took a giant wad of toilet paper and made a quick swipe of the seat. Then I hurriedly folded about five layers of toilet paper and lined the seat with it so I could sit down. “Ahhhhh…..” as I was feeling totally relieved, I looked around the bathroom some more. The floor was covered in long, black curly hairs. The shower curtain had once been all white, but the bottom half was pinkish orange from mildew and mold. I stood up and as I reached to flush the toilet, I saw that the lid to the back of the toilet was largely cracked in three places.
“Oh my gosh, you’re not going to believe this!” I yelled through the door to Jeff. He did not respond. I reached for the tiny bar of soap sitting on the bathroom counter and as I did, I stopped myself. It was used and filthy. My hands were just fine as is. I reached for another piece of tissue to blow my nose, and when I looked down for the garbage, it was nowhere to be found. I opened the little wooden cupboard under the sink and took a step back. Other people must not have been able to find a garbage can either, and the cleaning crew had failed to check under the sink. There was a pile of garbage that I tried not to look at as I added my tissue to it. I tucked my hand into my sleeve and opened the bathroom door. The room was still dark and only lit by the glow of the television.
“Grab your bags, we’re leaving.” Jeff said with no-nonsense authority.
“Oh my…” I stopped in mid-sentence as I glanced down at the carpet, now visible by the television light. “Do you see the pile of fingernails down there?” I pointed to the carpet at the end of the perfectly made bed.
“That’s nothing, look at this!” There were giant stains throughout the entire carpeted area. Some looked dark and still wet. The only thing missing was a chalk outline of a body.
“The bathroom was so…”
“Let’s just get out of here. Tell me in the car.” Again, he spoke with resolute authority and I did not question him.
Instead of taking the scenic elevator back down, we walked rapidly down the back staircase and through a dark hallway to the front desk. The guy at the front desk looked up from folding towels. “Do you want your money back?” he said without missing a beat.
“Sometimes the cleaning crew doesn’t get to all the rooms….” He stopped talking and looked down at the towels he was folding. He looked embarrassed all of a sudden.
I wanted to be nice and let him know we were dissatisfied with the room, but not with him. He looked like he had a hard life for someone so young. Looking more closely at his face in the fluorescent light, I noticed hard lines around his eyes that only a 60-year-old person should have. I felt sorry for him. This was no life for an apparently sweet, young man.
“Here, I’ll take your card and swipe it again for your money back. I’m sorry about this.”
Jeff immediately looked at me as if to say, “Do we trust him with our card? He just put us in a pit!” I shot him a look that said, “Trust me.” I trusted the guy behind the counter for some reason. I actually really liked him. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was working here, though.
After scanning our card and handing me the receipt, he apologized again.
“No problem-you’ll want to have that room cleaned, though….” There was nothing I could think of to say that would let him know that I wasn’t upset. My husband was waiting for me with our luggage. “Thanks…Have a good night…” I said over my shoulder as I walked back to the hallway were Jeff was standing.
“Oh my gosh, do you think that homeless guy will still be out there?” I whispered to Jeff.
“Let me look,” he said with that no-nonsense authority again. I knew he was being extra protective of me. He knows I think it’s adorable.
After glancing quickly through the tiny back window, he grabbed our luggage and said, “Let’s go!”
I gripped my purse tightly and followed behind Jeff. A girl in a mini skirt and high heels was talking to the “homeless” man who was now holding an expensive leather briefcase. She had a hand on his arm and held a shiny yellow purse in her other hand. She never looked our way, but starting giggling just as I sat down and shut the car door. The man was talking quickly and quietly and making gestures toward the back door of the hotel. Something caught my eye and I quickly observed that his shoes were expensive, Italian leather shoes with elegant sharp angles at the toe. All of a sudden his grungy jeans looked like fashionable jeans made to look grungy. I had seen a pair of jeans like that once in Neiman Marcus. His disheveled hair also looked all of a sudden trendy and rock star-ish. As our car drove past them, I could hear the woman giggle again.
“No way!” Jeff and I looked at each other and laughed as we rolled out of the parking lot.
“We almost stayed at a Pimp Hotel!” I yelled.
“You should have seen the bathroom floor…..” I started but Jeff stopped me.
“I’m sorry, honey, tell me later. I’m a little stressed out because we still have to find a place to stay. Do you mind doing me a favor and calling information for the number of a Comfort Inn in Federal Way?”
For some reason that made me instantly grumpy again and I immediately tuned into my growling hunger pains. I was stressed out, too, but I couldn’t believe what we had just seen.
“Whaaat?! We’re driving that far south tonight? I’m starving! Can we at least stop somewhere to eat first?” Oh, my stomach was really mad at me.
“Please call information, honey. I’m really tired and we need to find lodging before too much longer or we’ll be in trouble.”
Jeff and I drove south and eventually found a place to stay, but we went without dinner that night.
-Nicole MacDonald of Battle Ground, Washington
http://myyearwithout.blogspot.com
http://betterlivingthroughsimplicity.blogspot.com
As I pushed open the hotel’s heavy door, cool air blew on my face and I realized I hadn’t had a break from the sun all day. The air felt wonderful. The hotel seemed to be a diamond in the rough. The outside of it was non-spectacular—which we figured meant an okay price. I was shocked, once inside, to be surrounded by new furniture, decorations and artsy flourishings. I breathed in new-carpet-smell, and noticed an entire wall made of glass dedicated to housing large, bright-colored fish—this place had undergone a beautiful remodel. The furniture was my favorite part. I decided we’d be willing to stay here even if the price was a little spendy. I loved the round, orange couches and the squiggly bright colors on the hip, new throw rugs. Even the hanging, retro lamps made me want to splurge a little. I approached the front desk noticing that there were only young people hanging around the lobby. Three guys with reflective, shaved heads sat in a perfect row at the computers, two girls sat close together on a couch in the back and talked quietly, and the front desk person looked like someone I’d seen in a local band recently.
“The rooms start at $300,” he said. I swallowed and looked him in the eye. I was not prepared for that price. Giving him the look I had practiced numerous times with my husband, I fluttered my eyelashes just slightly and asked if he had any discounts for me.
Just at the moment when I was enjoying my own charming abilities, his cell phone rang loudly and he immediately lost his connection to me and grabbed his phone. After waiting for several minutes while he talked to someone about band equipment, I decided that he was rude, and I didn’t want to give him our business. Just as I decided it wasn’t worth the wait to hear if he had any discounts, one of the guys on a computer gave me a look as if to say, “That guy is crazy!” I took it as validation in leaving.
“Sorry, honey, we’re not staying here.” I said when I returned to the car. I told him the details and we decided to head north, further out of town.
“I’m hungry, aren’t you?” Jeff asked over the loud Tusk album. “We forgot to eat lunch, didn’t we? I ate some chips on the boat but they were too salty.”
“I had some carrot sticks but I felt bad about forgetting to bring a lunch. They didn’t have that much food, anyway. Now I’m starving!”
Eventually, I got grumpy. We started discussing if we should eat first, or find a hotel first. We argued back and forth about this, and then agreed that whatever we came to first was where we would stop. But we wouldn’t settle for fast food or a cheap, one-story hotel.
When we found ourselves far north on Aurora Avenue, things started feeling a little creepy. I think we both realized that we’d gone too far, but no one said anything. I turned down the music.
The street was dark and seemed to have an unusual amount of cars with tinted windows and loud stereos. A few girls were out walking and each one held a beverage in a paper sack, and wore similar, short mini skirts and high heels. It dawned on us that we were probably not in the best area of town and that a hotel out here was a really bad idea. We talked about returning to the orange-decorated, hip hotel. For some reason, we had lost interest in trying to find a nice place and a decent price.
We decided to turn around and head south on Aurora Avenue when all of a sudden a white tower stood before us on the right side of the road. It appeared to be a brand new hotel, with beautiful white stucco walls lit up by a series of pretty lights. There were plush, green bushes spaced evenly all around the driveway, and it looked sharp, so we decided to end our hotel search here.
We learned on our honeymoon, two years ago in Belize City, that if you are in a bad part of town, you can always stay locked up in your room. Jeff pulled into the small lot at the front door to the hotel. I jumped out, looked back at Jeff and winked, then walked confidently into what I assumed would be our lodging for the night.
The young guy at the front desk was watching me when I walked in. “Can I help you?” Covered in tattoos with symbols, numbers and strange diagrams, his eyes met mine. I looked him over quickly and didn’t feel like his tattoos fit the innocence I perceived right away in his light, blue eyes.
“Do you have a room available tonight?” I asked without batting my eyes at him. I scanned the lobby. There was a giant sign that read, “NO SMOKING. NO PETS” and a small counter with two coffee thermoses and a plate of organized sugar packets.
“It’s $60 for the night and I can put you on the third floor away from the street. Is a queen-sized bed okay?” he asked. His voice was soft and friendly, and I pictured him for a moment with white arms.
“We’ll take it! Let me go outside and check with my husband first. I’ll be right back.”
“It’s only $60 a night! I can’t believe it! Can we check in and then go get some food? Maybe we can just order a pizza and have it delivered.” I was hyper and excited to have found a place. It was 9:30 pm and I was starving, but somehow, I wasn’t grumpy anymore—it must have been a second wind.
“Let’s do it.” Jeff agreed. I grabbed my wallet and skipped inside to pay for our room.
After paying, we drove to the back of the hotel and into the “underground parking” area, which was ground level parking underneath the second story. We parked and looked around us. The lights were dim and yellow, and we both secretly noticed that our little black car was the nicest one in the lot.
“This car looks like it’s been through a fire!” Its roof was missing and replaced with duct tape. Jeff nodded but didn’t say anything. The other cars seemed really out of date and a few looked as if they hadn’t moved in months. When we gathered our luggage, we stepped up onto the walkway and noticed someone exhibiting strange behavior. A homeless man was pretending to wash the windshield of a car we had overlooked. It was a brand new Mercedes convertible with shiny silver hubcaps. The man in question had a dirty rag that he dipped into a plastic bag and then pretended to scrub the glass windshield of the Mercedes. It looked like he was hardly touching the glass, however, and he looked nervous as we walked by. Jeff and I glanced at each other and kept walking. I made up a silly question and pretended to be pre-occupied by Jeff’s answer until we were safe inside. We both let out a sigh at the same time and set our luggage down in the hallway. I raced him to the back window to spy on the man out in the parking lot. As we both had secretly suspected, he was no longer at the windshield, but walking slowly around the Mercedes looking inside of it with its top down. We whispered to each other and decided that we should go upstairs to our room. We had no valuables in our car and neither of us felt like doing anything about that guy.
We entered the elevator and pushed the button to the third floor. The doors closed and graffiti surrounded us on all sides. The inside of the entire elevator was covered with graffiti-not spray painted, but rather all four walls had been keyed from top to bottom. We rolled our eyes at each other and smiled. We were at last checked in and done looking for a hotel. When the elevator opened at the third floor we were immediately greeted with the stench of thick cigarette smoke like you would smell at a small bar with no airflow.
“The sign said ‘NO SMOKING’!” I told Jeff. “I can’t believe it! It reeks up here!”
“Our room better not smell like this…” Jeff’s voice trailed off as a door opened and two women stepped into the hallway, obviously intoxicated. The stench of cigarette smoke increased as we walked past their room. I tried casually peeking into their room but someone was on the other side of the door pushing it shut. Silently, we arrived at the last door on the left, and swiped our key card.
Having been in the car for hours, looking for a place to eat and a place to stay, I had put off using the last available restroom we had access to earlier in the day. The power of suggestion of having my own little bathroom overwhelmed me as I pushed the door open to our room. All of a sudden I had to pee immediately or I was going to explode. I shoved my luggage into the small room and flicked the light switch on. Nothing happened. I saw the shadow of a lamp sitting on a small entertainment center and quickly pushed the button to turn it on. Nothing happened. There was a tiny little kitchen area with a small, unplugged refrigerator sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, and I saw another light switch and flicked it. Nothing happened. I could feel a flow of frustrated heat start in my chest; move through my neck and into my face. I had to pee but I was angry that the lights didn’t work. Jeff had set his luggage down in the middle of the room and was fidgeting with the television remote by the light of the outside street lamp. I had to pee!
“Ughhhhhh!” I let out an angry sigh and grabbed the doorknob to the closed bathroom door. I would deal with the light situation after I relieved myself. The light switch worked in the bathroom but I wished it hadn’t. The bathroom was filthy. The first thing I noticed looking at the toilet seat that I was about to sit down on, was that it was covered in little drops of light yellow liquid. “Great,” I thought to myself, “someone peed on the toilet.” I almost decided to not use it, but I was seriously hurting. I took a giant wad of toilet paper and made a quick swipe of the seat. Then I hurriedly folded about five layers of toilet paper and lined the seat with it so I could sit down. “Ahhhhh…..” as I was feeling totally relieved, I looked around the bathroom some more. The floor was covered in long, black curly hairs. The shower curtain had once been all white, but the bottom half was pinkish orange from mildew and mold. I stood up and as I reached to flush the toilet, I saw that the lid to the back of the toilet was largely cracked in three places.
“Oh my gosh, you’re not going to believe this!” I yelled through the door to Jeff. He did not respond. I reached for the tiny bar of soap sitting on the bathroom counter and as I did, I stopped myself. It was used and filthy. My hands were just fine as is. I reached for another piece of tissue to blow my nose, and when I looked down for the garbage, it was nowhere to be found. I opened the little wooden cupboard under the sink and took a step back. Other people must not have been able to find a garbage can either, and the cleaning crew had failed to check under the sink. There was a pile of garbage that I tried not to look at as I added my tissue to it. I tucked my hand into my sleeve and opened the bathroom door. The room was still dark and only lit by the glow of the television.
“Grab your bags, we’re leaving.” Jeff said with no-nonsense authority.
“Oh my…” I stopped in mid-sentence as I glanced down at the carpet, now visible by the television light. “Do you see the pile of fingernails down there?” I pointed to the carpet at the end of the perfectly made bed.
“That’s nothing, look at this!” There were giant stains throughout the entire carpeted area. Some looked dark and still wet. The only thing missing was a chalk outline of a body.
“The bathroom was so…”
“Let’s just get out of here. Tell me in the car.” Again, he spoke with resolute authority and I did not question him.
Instead of taking the scenic elevator back down, we walked rapidly down the back staircase and through a dark hallway to the front desk. The guy at the front desk looked up from folding towels. “Do you want your money back?” he said without missing a beat.
“Sometimes the cleaning crew doesn’t get to all the rooms….” He stopped talking and looked down at the towels he was folding. He looked embarrassed all of a sudden.
I wanted to be nice and let him know we were dissatisfied with the room, but not with him. He looked like he had a hard life for someone so young. Looking more closely at his face in the fluorescent light, I noticed hard lines around his eyes that only a 60-year-old person should have. I felt sorry for him. This was no life for an apparently sweet, young man.
“Here, I’ll take your card and swipe it again for your money back. I’m sorry about this.”
Jeff immediately looked at me as if to say, “Do we trust him with our card? He just put us in a pit!” I shot him a look that said, “Trust me.” I trusted the guy behind the counter for some reason. I actually really liked him. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was working here, though.
After scanning our card and handing me the receipt, he apologized again.
“No problem-you’ll want to have that room cleaned, though….” There was nothing I could think of to say that would let him know that I wasn’t upset. My husband was waiting for me with our luggage. “Thanks…Have a good night…” I said over my shoulder as I walked back to the hallway were Jeff was standing.
“Oh my gosh, do you think that homeless guy will still be out there?” I whispered to Jeff.
“Let me look,” he said with that no-nonsense authority again. I knew he was being extra protective of me. He knows I think it’s adorable.
After glancing quickly through the tiny back window, he grabbed our luggage and said, “Let’s go!”
I gripped my purse tightly and followed behind Jeff. A girl in a mini skirt and high heels was talking to the “homeless” man who was now holding an expensive leather briefcase. She had a hand on his arm and held a shiny yellow purse in her other hand. She never looked our way, but starting giggling just as I sat down and shut the car door. The man was talking quickly and quietly and making gestures toward the back door of the hotel. Something caught my eye and I quickly observed that his shoes were expensive, Italian leather shoes with elegant sharp angles at the toe. All of a sudden his grungy jeans looked like fashionable jeans made to look grungy. I had seen a pair of jeans like that once in Neiman Marcus. His disheveled hair also looked all of a sudden trendy and rock star-ish. As our car drove past them, I could hear the woman giggle again.
“No way!” Jeff and I looked at each other and laughed as we rolled out of the parking lot.
“We almost stayed at a Pimp Hotel!” I yelled.
“You should have seen the bathroom floor…..” I started but Jeff stopped me.
“I’m sorry, honey, tell me later. I’m a little stressed out because we still have to find a place to stay. Do you mind doing me a favor and calling information for the number of a Comfort Inn in Federal Way?”
For some reason that made me instantly grumpy again and I immediately tuned into my growling hunger pains. I was stressed out, too, but I couldn’t believe what we had just seen.
“Whaaat?! We’re driving that far south tonight? I’m starving! Can we at least stop somewhere to eat first?” Oh, my stomach was really mad at me.
“Please call information, honey. I’m really tired and we need to find lodging before too much longer or we’ll be in trouble.”
Jeff and I drove south and eventually found a place to stay, but we went without dinner that night.
-Nicole MacDonald of Battle Ground, Washington
http://myyearwithout.blogspot.com
http://betterlivingthroughsimplicity.blogspot.com
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
the usual ting
Earlier this year, in February, I went to the island of Jamaica with a friend who had lived there for many years. While my friend stayed with her longtime Jamaican woman friend, I stayed at an inexpensive motel across the street. This motel was owned by a French woman married to a Jamaican man. The place was clean, but had nothing much by the way of luxuries. I didn't mind, though. Most of the other guests were elderly Americans or Europeans who knew the owners - it was kind of a family place. I called it the geriatrics lounge. The most exciting thing was hanging out at the motel's outdoor roundbar where the drinks were served by the pint. Periodically, I would shout to my friend from across the highway to come over for breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack or a drink. Unlike most of the sodden guests, neither one of us drank alcoholic beverages, so we would just drink fruit juice. When the talk at the bar got particularly raunchy, we would go to my room. And since the majority of the conversation consisted of talk of Viagra and sex, that was pretty frequently. Frankly, it was rather boring to hear these older guys wax on.
One morning, my friend and I decided to go into the neighboring parish just to walk around. We were actually hoping not to run into any men that she knew because she didn't want to be harassed. After the long ride and a long hike, we decided to go to the beach there. No sooner had we gotten to the beach than we heard a man's voice calling her "Patti, Patti!" And so we joined him. He was a graceful Rastafarian man who grew up in the area and knitted "tams" - the Rastafarian hats - for a living. So we talked, took pictures, and I told him that I had recently fractured my shoulder and that it was still sore. He then massaged my shoulder with such skill that it almost immediately felt much better. By that point, it became clear to me that he and I were sexually attracted to each other. In fact, we agreed to meet up at a dance the following night. Coincidentally, earlier that day, I had wished for someone to have a little fling with. I had actually prayed for a little adventure. Having just broken up with my male friend , I had wanted a little fling while in Jamaica.
That night, my friend and I hung out at the round bar drinking the usual Ting -- a very delicious natural Jamaican grapefruit juice drink. Afterwards, I went to my room and fell asleep. I slept for about three hours. But an unusual dip in temperature woke me up. I was really uncomfortable. I had no blankets and I was cursing myself for not getting any. Just then, there was a tap at my window. I was startled and a little apprehensive. So I raised my voice - with force - and said, "Who is it?" And he responded, "It's me, Peter." I gladly opened the door and let him in. When he asked why I was awake, I told him that I was cold and he responded ,"Well, I'm here to warm you up!" He later explained that the reason he came in late was because he knew the owners were peculiar and would not have wanted a nonpaying overnight guest at the motel. Particularly a Rastafarian guy. And so for the rest of my vacation, he snuck in late every night and snuck out early every morning....and it was...great...
-Delilah Rivera of New York, NY
One morning, my friend and I decided to go into the neighboring parish just to walk around. We were actually hoping not to run into any men that she knew because she didn't want to be harassed. After the long ride and a long hike, we decided to go to the beach there. No sooner had we gotten to the beach than we heard a man's voice calling her "Patti, Patti!" And so we joined him. He was a graceful Rastafarian man who grew up in the area and knitted "tams" - the Rastafarian hats - for a living. So we talked, took pictures, and I told him that I had recently fractured my shoulder and that it was still sore. He then massaged my shoulder with such skill that it almost immediately felt much better. By that point, it became clear to me that he and I were sexually attracted to each other. In fact, we agreed to meet up at a dance the following night. Coincidentally, earlier that day, I had wished for someone to have a little fling with. I had actually prayed for a little adventure. Having just broken up with my male friend , I had wanted a little fling while in Jamaica.
That night, my friend and I hung out at the round bar drinking the usual Ting -- a very delicious natural Jamaican grapefruit juice drink. Afterwards, I went to my room and fell asleep. I slept for about three hours. But an unusual dip in temperature woke me up. I was really uncomfortable. I had no blankets and I was cursing myself for not getting any. Just then, there was a tap at my window. I was startled and a little apprehensive. So I raised my voice - with force - and said, "Who is it?" And he responded, "It's me, Peter." I gladly opened the door and let him in. When he asked why I was awake, I told him that I was cold and he responded ,"Well, I'm here to warm you up!" He later explained that the reason he came in late was because he knew the owners were peculiar and would not have wanted a nonpaying overnight guest at the motel. Particularly a Rastafarian guy. And so for the rest of my vacation, he snuck in late every night and snuck out early every morning....and it was...great...
-Delilah Rivera of New York, NY
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
greyhounds in lyons
I was forced to go to Lyons for my work every week which was about a 5 hour drive so I decided to take my two greyhounds for company; we'd enjoy an evening walk and then I'd get a pizza or numerous chinese food dishes (company was paying) and some beer and watch a soccer game in the room. One week my girlfriend came with me and we were enjoying breakfast in the room before I had to go to work and had put the dogs in the little 'entranceway' of the room with the door closed. We hear some kind of noise coming from where the dogs are and open the door to see in horror the female with a piece of wallpaper hanging out of her mouth; she had dug a small hole in the wall! Of course I was going to tell the hotel owner later but at the moment I had to get to work. So we are getting in the car as the owner's wife appears at the entrance to the hotel shouting something like "why didn't you tell me what happened". We hadn't been out of the room 5 minutes and she had already gone up to 'check on us'!
-Richard Roehl of St Vallier de Thiey, France
-Richard Roehl of St Vallier de Thiey, France
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