More Motel Blues

Every once in awhile, life delves out an experience that reminds me I’m not as sophisticated as I might think I am. Such was the case at a motel in Colorado.

After twelve hours of driving on very little sleep, I knew I was suffering from sleep depredation when I caught myself telling jokes and laughing out loud at them. So, I figured I’d find a motel at the very next town and catch a few hours sleep before continuing my journey.

It was 2:00 p.m. and I’d just crossed the border into eastern Colorado when I pulled off the interstate after spying a fairly nice motel. It wasn’t fancy but it met my criteria—it was inexpensive.

The motel manager handed me the key to my room, and after parking my truck, I entered my sleeping quarters. When I saw the queen-size bed in my room the desire to plop my weary body down on it was overwhelming, and I couldn’t unload my truck fast enough.

But it wasn’t until I tried to relax on the bed that I realized the circumstances I found myself in were less then ideal to suit my purposes. The room I was given was right behind a tire store. In fact, the paper-thin wall behind the headboard of my bed was also the back wall to the garage of the tire store.

All afternoon, as I tried to sleep, I laid bug-eyed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to shut out of my mind the loud ZIIING, CLANK, CLANK, CRASH, CLUNK, ZIIIIING of the tire men, working on customers’ vehicles on the other side of that thin barrier of a wall between us. It proved to be a very long, sleepless afternoon.

Sometime in the evening, when things quieted down after the tire store closed its doors, I finally dozed off and caught a few hours sleep.

At 12:a.m. the following morning, the alarm clock in my room awakened me from a deep slumber. Foggy headed, I made my way toward the bathroom in anticipation of a nice, long, hot shower. Now, this shower was not your typical motel shower. It was humongous! Heck, you could've fit the whole graduating class of a small high school inside of it.

I was still feeling exhausted from my long drive of the day before, and I felt like collapsing in the shower, letting the hot water rain down on me in hopes of revitalizing my tired, worn out body. But I didn’t want to sit on the floor of an unfamiliar shower, so in my murky state of mind, I grabbed something I could sit on while enjoying the comforts of a hot-water massage.

Now, I know I’m not the most traveled person in the world, but I thought I was somewhat intelligent, that is, until this incident.

You see, in every motel I’d ever stayed in the rooms always had an aluminum framed gizmo (luggage holders I later learned), with nylon straps that, when the gizmo is unfolded like a camping stool, creates a flat surface on which to set your luggage, as opposed to setting it on the floor. This motel was no exception.

I’d always wondered what these little gizmos were for, but in my not-so-clear state of mind I decided the little contraption in my room would make a dandy shower stool to sit on, and it did. There was just one problem.

Unbeknownst to me the hot water from the shower caused the black die on the straps to bleed. I’m not talking about a little bleeding here either. No, I’m talking a series of black stripes, two inches wide, traversing my hand quarters.

To this day I don’t think ex-wife believed my explanation for those confounded stripes across my derriere: “You see, honey, it was raining really hard and I was crossing the road to help a stranded motorist when I slipped and fell. It was then that this big ole truck from out of no where ran over me, and the tire marks from it soaked right through my pants. I was lucky I wasn’t killed.”

Hey, I didn’t want to appear to be too stupid. A guy has to keep some dignity you know.