I was just trying to support the "little guy." I never meant to end up in the kind of motel room in which most people would say they wouldn't be caught dead.
It all started when my husband and I returned home from a vacation out west. We were newly transplanted to a house in a rural setting. As former New Yorkers, from Manhattan, it came as a particular shock to find what had happened in our absence. Somehow, a severe summer storm had caused our electric well pump to break down, leaving us with no running water!
After the problem was diagnosed, the well repair company put us in the waiting line for service. But as we waited, Bruce and I grew weary of sponging ourselves off with "Fresh 'N Up Moist Wipes" from the local drugstore and pouring bottled water into the toilet tanks for our (ugh) once daily flush. I suggested we spend at least one night in a nearby motel.
We had often passed a motel on Route 11 which looked rather cute - quaint and, shall we say, unconcerned with pretention. Let me call it the Kerrywood Motel.
I thought it looked sort of brave to be independent - not to be part of a chain. I chose it because I had a notion that I admired the owners, whoever they were, for competing with the big concerns. It seemed romantic and noble. And it was cheap.
Over the phone, the manager, in lilting East Indian cadence, quoted me the rate of $33 a night! The place turned out to be like something out of a film noir where they catch up with the guy on the lam!
Our room was darkened by a chunky air conditioner that gave out not only cooled air but also an incredible amount of noise. The refrigerator door was unashamedly secured with, the cure for all shortcomings, duct tape.
I suppose I should have taken it for a clue when we registered in the corner office that we were required to pay IN ADVANCE; and that the same lilting manager from the phone in plaid Bermuda shorts, had glanced with a grin at my open wallet and crooned, "Hmmmm, a lot of credit cards."
The TV, an advertised featured amenity, was a massive, ancient, wooden-framed console that was disproportionate to the cramped room. It lurked awkwardly near the bed. The bed itself looked okay; the sheets looked clean (I peeked underneath the flimsy comforter). But there was no closet. Instead, wire hangers dangled from a saw-toothed swing arm bolted to the wall. (I kept thinking how angry those hangers would have made Joan Crawford.)
At least there's hot running water, I thought. Then I noticed tiny bugs enjoying the moisture of the bathroom sink. It was summertime after all, so the presence of small bugs could have been appropriately rustic. But they were so very small that we could not make out just what they were and feared to question their identity any further.
The towels were a stainless white and appeared, as with the peek at the bed linens, to be clean. But, to the touch, they turned out to be slightly DAMP. (Thank heavens we had some towels of our own in the car.)
We decided to shower, shampoo, not think of that famous scene in Psycho and escape. So I was already in hair rollers when the manager arrived at the door. He had come to confide in us that the man who had our room the night before had failed to return his key. "People do that sometimes," he reassured. "So if he shows up, just let me know and I will assign him another room."
As soon as our host left we speculated about the former guest - proverbial axe murderer? terrorist? flasher? And then we fled the Kerrywood.
After dutifully placing our keys on the nightstand we sped off down the road with the late evening breeze drying our still wet hair. I'm certain the manager never believed we were married - well, not to each other, at least - and probably peered at our flight through the corner office window, thinking that hair rollers on a rendezvous had been a tacky touch.
* * *
We heard that later, an unsuspecting out-of-town colleague of Bruce's selected the same motel. In the middle of the night, he was awakened by the police who had mistaken him for a drug dealer.
Now, as much as I may have tried to be chivalrous like Don Quixote - knocking down the windmill giants of corporate motel chains with a stay at the little Kerrywood - this fellow was a hundred times more impractical. He chose to overlook the misunderstanding and remain for a second night!
Again he was awakened - this time by the REAL drug dealer's associates.
When they sorted out the confusion, the "associates" advised him of something of which we already had a hint - that this was not the WISEST place to lodge.