The Great Motel Misadventure, or The Briny Eleven

We now go back in time to graduation weekend. Specifically, the nights of May 4th and 5th.

When you're taking an overnight trip with a group of 11, you do not just drop in on folks without warning. Well, you can, but you'd jolly well better be ready to pay for emergency medical services if your potential hosts should have...say, a sudden coronary or something.

However, despite being numerous, we are not totally without friends. With this heady knowledge in the forefront of our cranial quarters, we contacted two different families who might be able to put us up, or rather, "put up with us," for two nights.

Now every once in a while, due to unusual star alignments and irregular positioning of the solar plexus and all that, plans fall through. People have previous commitments that cannot be altered, no matter how badly they wish to help.

In other words, we had no freebie.

With four days to go we began checking motels. The first two of reasonable price were full. It appeared quite possible that other persons with a tad more foresight had already booked for this graduation weekend.

We gave brief thought to more expensive places like Ramada Inn but frankly, we do not FEEL like Ramada Inn people. I'm pretty sure our bank account doesn't FEEL like a Ramada Inn bank account, either. And then, staying in such a classy place would have necessitated a whole new wardrobe from Goodwill and I mean...who has time for that?

THEN, el hubbo, who had resided in the Warsaw, IN area for as many years as any, remembered a quaint little place not listed with the other online and (now we know) reputable establishments.

It's name? Oh, I couldn't go so far as to make that public, but it does rhyme with Agronomy Finn. And this place did indeed have vacancies. We booked, feeling smug in the knowledge that we were saving tons of moolah.

Fast forward to our arrival.

With minutes to spare before changing into spiffy things for the dessert bash with el presidento, we pulled into the motel parking lot whereupon we heard those immortal words from the son who had just completed his first year at college, "What a dump! "

(keep in mind this is the same young man who had survived a year of Saga food. You'd think he'd be a little more appreciative...as one newly released from prison...)

Trying to keep upbeat, Ma said perkily, "Oooo, blue painted sidewalks! Nice, huh guys?"

We hauled our luggage up the outdoor stairway and found our three rooms, handily located all in a cellblock....er, row. As we opened them, our nostrils were assaulted with the stale smoky odor of the management's droll version of "non-smoking" rooms.

Ooohhh boy.

Further inspection exposed the following:

-bathrooms the size of a closet
-no mirror in our (Loren, myself and the two littlest boys) room
-no rod for hang-up clothes in the boys' room and an outside lock that many times refused to open without being vigorously manhandled
-very limited TV channels in the girls' room and numerous structural flaws (as there were in all rooms), all documented by Ardith's new camera

But the beds seemed moderately clean and it was after all, just a place to crash at night.

And speaking of night...it held all the charms of a migraine.

As one lay in bed, bathed in an orange glow from street lights shining through inadequate curtains, one could sense the spirits of past smokers spiraling around the room in wisps of forgotten drags.

Their presence was felt, though shrouded by the mists of time. Shadowy, lingering and full of murk.

It was enough to make one want to stuff one's nose in one's armpit, just to get a breath of fresh air.

But no misadventure lasts forever and once we arrived home and washed every single piece of clothing and pillowcase we again sank into the bliss of what is known as the Hoyt Homestead.

It's dusty and cluttered but it smells like us.

When telling a friend where we lodged he decried, "You didn't stay there, did you? That's where they send the work release guys!"

Well, yes. Yes we did.

And it's so nice to be back on the outside.
 

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