chapter 10: part 5

continued from chapter 10: part 4

The inn we booked into had so much wrong with it that you’ll think I invented this, but every word is true. We were directed to a room that hadn’t been made up, and the tables were littered with dirty cups and overflowing ashtrays. We skipped the idea of room service and went back to the desk to get that straightened out.

That’s when we learned they did not have a dining room let alone room service. What they had was proximity to a restaurant next door, so we tramped across the snow to join a wildly enthusiastic Friday night crowd. We were so tired that one drink and barbecued brochette shrimps tasted just fine and we headed off to our room feeling much better.

At two in the morning Hal called the front desk to ask if the people on the other side of our adjoining door could be asked to stop the partying and douse the cigarettes. The door was far from airtight. At seven o’clock I called the front desk and politely told the man he had five minutes to clear that room or I would stand in the hallway and scream, "Fire!" at the top of my lungs. The party ended in three minutes and twelve seconds.

We decided we’d had enough and wearily dressed, skipping showers because there were two tiny hand towels and no face cloths and by that time we stopped caring. There was also one coat hanger in the closet. The sounds through the walls of flushing toilets and thundering bath water was just another irritant.

As we prepared to leave, I wrote DUST ME on the television and as the final insult, I found an empty cupcake paper and wad of gum left by some other happy camper in the drawer of the bedside table.

I roughed out a stinging letter to the manager, but in all the moving-in confusion the letter was never mailed.

Too bad. The manager probably thinks he/she is adequate.

continued in chapter 10: part 6