2005-01-06 - 11:04 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Day Tripper", The Beatles

Today I'm going to tell you a story about what happens when you're the kind of person who has a tendency to take things literally, or at face value, all the time.

I think it may be a function of the fact that simply understanding what a person is saying (particularly someone I've just met) takes enough effort in itself, and the results of the additional work of processing tone and visual cues and personality quirks kicks in a little later (sometimes too late).

Usually it just means I can't tell someone is teasing me, but other times ridiculous things happen.

Back when we were living on opposite coasts, Poindexter took a flight east that got in late, so we rented a motel room on Route 1 near BWI. We were going up to NJ the next day, and didn't want to drive the hour back to my apartment only to have to drive it again in the morning. So we stayed at one of those small independent motels. A former coworker of mine had told me that the hotels in that area were nice enough, and cheap.

The one we picked was made of red brick, and pretty on the outside. We went up to the office and inquired about a room.

Woman in motel office: We got a twenty-five dollar room and a thirty-five dollar room.
Poindexter: What's the difference?
Woman: The thirty-five dollar room has a phone.
Poindexter: All right, we'll take the one with the phone.

It was small, but just like my coworker said, nice enough, and I remember the towels had embroidery on them rather than being boring white. The only downside to staying there was that some guy driving a car carrier also stayed there, and for some reason had to unload and reload half the cars in the morning, which it was noisy.

So that was that.

In January a year later, I was up at my parents house in NJ and leaving for California from BWI the next day to return to Poindexter (we were living together in California by then, but I'd gone to Jersey for Christmas). My flight around 8am, so my plan was to get a room in the same motel and catch a cab in the morning. It was snowing, so my train was delayed, and I didn't get there 'til about 11pm. I was tired, a little nervous because of the snow, and feeling a little lonely, missing my family and Poindexter and feeling very alone. And did I mention I was tired?

Since I had a cell phone and portable TDD, I didn't need the phone, so I mentioned our previous visit and the $35/$25 choice, and asked for the twenty-five dollar room. "That room has a six-hour limit," the woman informed me.

I thought that was odd, but I thought it had something to do with all the truckers passing through (technically, I hear, they're supposed to sleep 8 hours at a stretch, but I also hear that rule gets bent a lot). I had to get up early for my flight anyway, so I decided to take it and save the ten bucks.

The room wasn't as nice, though -- no comforter, I think, just a blanket, and it was a bit stark. There was a wide full-length mirror directly across from the bed. The starkness made it feel cold and a little dirty, so I slept in my clothes, which I ordinarily never do. And I didn't sleep well at all, until finally around 4am I gave up and decided to watch TV.

So I turn on the TV, and it's tuned to a channel with a picture I can't decipher. There's some movement ... up and down ... oh! A porno! Woman-on-top. It was colossally bad porn and I had a paranoid thought that my viewing was being monitored, so I began flipping channels.

But then the pieces (finally!) began falling into place in my brain.

The six-hour limit ... the mirror ... the lack of pleasantries in the room ... the porn on the TV ... OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD. This wasn't your average hotel room, and I'd been too tired to make the connection the night before. In retrospect it seemed glaringly obvious that there's only one good reason why a room would have a six-hour limit and I suddenly really, really wished I'd paid the extra ten bucks.

Ah well. Ya gotta figure people are having sex in regular hotel rooms, too, and since that was the sole purpose for this particular one, maybe they paid more attention to cleaning it. But aside from cold weather situations, I don't think I've ever been so glad to have clothes on. ;)

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