Motel Adventure

first frosty leaves
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

Last night I stayed in a motel all by myself. That is the kind of thing that normal people do all the time without thinking about it, I know, but I just sort of never have, except possibly maybe once, long long ago in a galaxy far, far away. You see, I had a child when I was rather young and then another one some eight or so years later and thus all my motel visit memories seem to include small children jumping on beds and the glory that was the Cartoon Channel to kids who had never seen cable TV before.

The exterminators came yesterday and, based on my previous I-nearly-died-of-the-fumes experience with fumigation, I reserved a motel room with Priceline. I never use Priceline anymore because you can't change anything, but, hey, this time, I figured, nothing would change and I got a good deal, so, what the hell. Naturally, I didn't then need it: the exterminators just did not exterminate as vigorously as they did in August and so the house smelled more or less fine. My son, who was supposed to accompany me on this motel adventure, also decamped for his friends', which is completely understandable (I personally would probably have preferred to hang myself rather than share a motel room in my home town with my parent at the age of 17.) So there I was, motel room reserved and paid for but house totally habitable. What do you do?

I went to the motel. Well, first I considered auctioning the room off on Craigslist or giving it to my daughter and then I got all angsted out about it. Maybe the fumes were stronger than I thought, because then I went to dinner with my friend Charles at Sunny Point and realized that I was a) just hungry and b) acting like a world class idiot. I mean, motel room! What's not to like? And it was pretty damn cool, if a little nervewracking: I forgot the bottle opener and was forced to watch TV. The bottle opener was a problem because I, like an idiot, have never learned to open beer with a lighter and you have to drink a beer when you're all alone in a motel room like a grownup. Then you have to go outside in your sweatpants and bare feet and sneak around the balcony to an unobtrusive location to smoke your sinful cigarettes, too, which is somehow a little less fun, although I did make several tourists jump.

The TV was worse. I very rarely watch TV so I don't know what to watch when I do and also, the ads get to me. I sat there and stared at the pretty glittering people on the commercials and all the graphics oozing around everything and the colors and lights and just sort of went whooooooooom whooooom and before I knew it almost an hour had gone by. In between the ads was Mythbusters, which I do really like, so that was good, and they had explosions, which is always pleasant. After that I could find nothing to watch - why is there never anything to watch? There are like 40 bajillion channels out there nowadays and all of them are showing either sports, infomercials, "documentaries" on gangs or horrible rich people doing horrible things to other horrible rich people and whining about it. I had to put on the Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and then the Christian allegory got to me. TV is overwhelming. If I had one in the living room I'd get even less accomplished than I do now.

In the morning I had coffee from my motel coffee maker and a motel shower with motel towels, all most satisfying and then went down to the lobby for the free breakfast. This was a classy motel - they had a lot more than stale danish and weak coffee. There was a waffle iron! And biscuits! And strange microwaved omelette thingies. I ate one of those on my way home, where, despite the lack of motel towels, built in kleenex dispensers, TVs and tiny wrapped soap, I was very happy to be.