Best Westerns are dives. Motel 6's? Junk heaps. Travelodges? Arm pits of the motel industry. I've been to and slept in more shoddy little chain motels than I care to count. Mostly on road trips with my family. They're all the same. Same sheets, same towels, same low pressure shower heads sputtering out the same lukewarm water. The day old pastries at the complimentary continental breakfast always give you the same queasy full but far from satisfied feeling. You ate the first two strawberry/raspberry/blueberry/cinnamon/custard/raisin glazed whatevers and thought that would be enough. But now there's that sense that what you just ate may have taken up space in your stomach but won't provide sustenance. So you have another, or five. Then there's the raisin-bran in the giant plastic container with the sliding door on the front. How can they screw up raisin-bran? Easy! They just give you tiny little styrofoam bowls that only hold two or three plastic spoonfuls of cereal. Good luck getting a full breakfast out of one of those. By the time you realize what's happening, that it doesn't matter what or how much you eat from the lackluster display, you've no room left for real food. Yep, that's the same too. Until I was twelve I thought “continental” meant _______.
God forbid you get the smoking room. For years smokers were spread out among all the rooms. The only time you noticed was when the occupant immediately before you was a smoker. Now, there's only one smoking room. It's room 114. It's where all the smokers stay. So many cartons of cigarettes have hacked and burned and tared their way through so many pairs of lungs in that one small space that the room is no longer called the smoking room because of what happens in it. It's called the smoking room because of what it does. It smokes. Literally. The walls and floor and furniture have all been slow roasted in poison gas and they gradually release their deadly vaporous cargo into the air. When you open the door it hits you in the face like a rotten egg. When given the smoking room, it's best to just walk down the block to the next identically generic motel, and hope they have a non-smoking vacancy.
There's a reason most of the rooms in the these places only have windows on the front side, looking inward toward the courtyard. If you ever get a room with a window on the backside, do not, under any circumstances look through it. Out that window is a poorly lit back ally, or a scrap yard, or a line of dumpsters, or a crazy cat lady's back yard. It will be filled with cinder blocks, railroad ties, a baby pool covered in two inches of mold, and a white 1973 Ford van where her 45 year old son lives because his room in the house is now filled with boxes of old junk mail which can't be thrown out since the garbage in this town is handled by the prisoners at the county jail and one of them might use the address printed on an envelope to steal the cat lady's identity. It's best to just leave the drapes closed and spare yourself the sight.
No one ever cleans the pool at chain motels. When the water starts looking dirty, someone just pours more chlorine in. Some time in 1980's the mixture became more chemicals than water and the ratio has been steadily increasing ever since. Actually swimming in the pool will turn you green and cover your skin with a thin, slick film of bleach and toddler urine. Good luck washing it off in the aforementioned motel shower.
You will never get a good nights sleep in a chain motel. It's not because the mattresses are filled with small stones or because the television won't turn off. And it's not because the air conditioning won't turn on in the summer and is stuck wide open in the winter. You won't sleep because the person you're staying with is a snorer. They will wake the next morning annoyingly refreshed and ready for the day having honked and snorted their way through the night like a entire flight of Canadian geese. And don't think you can get around this problem by staying alone. Because the person in the room next door will definitely not be alone. Maybe you weren't able to get any sleep during the night, but at least when you get up the next morning you can go downstairs for the complimentary continental breakfast.
6 comments:
What did you think "continental" meant until you were twelve? And you forgot to mention the icy-footed kicking little sister you had to share a bed with in all those chain motels. Don't worry, I take it as a compliment.
I thought it meant nothingness. A lack of definition in either spacial or conceptual terms. I felt that a better way of expressing this state of nothingness was to type nothing rather than trying to explain nothing with something.
Actually, I used to think that "Continental" meant that it made one incontinent. That was before I looked up "incontinent" in the dictionary and realized it meant the exact opposite of what I thought. I hope this sheds some light.
So, does this mean we'll be staying at the Four Seasons on our trip to Infineon? Sweeeeet.
Pa
If you're paying.
Actually, this whole thing is just an exercise in "setting the setting." I'm more than willing to spend a night in a chain motel when things like price and convenience are factored in. Plus you'll notice I didn't mention Super 8's.
If I'm paying, it's Motel 6 for you. Did I mention that the Grants Pass Super 8 is particularly posh? No? Must be a reason.
Oh, not to be a jerk or anything, but I believe you meant "A Five SCENT Motel Room." I know I've stayed in a few of those myself. I find I sleep better if I don't try to identify any of those scents.
Pa
Or it could be a "Five SENSE Motel Room." Oooooh. As in you use your five senses, and your sixth sense since most of those rooms have ESPN.
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