Hotel Rooms Are Nightmares
Hotel Rooms Are Nightmares
by: David Leonhardt
Ever since I began working for that Florida website, I have been plagued by recurring nightmares. I am haunted at night by the spirits of hotel rooms past.
There was a time when I traveled quite a bit on business. Thankfully, I don't hotels hop any more. But at night I float off to a hotel room far away in time...
The day's work done, I phoned home to check up on the kids. It seems there was a shouting match going on in my absence. It sounded like Pandemonium was winning, but Total Bedlam was making some noise, too.
"Can you just quiet down a bit," I said into the phone.
"YOU shut up," I heard the man in the next room growl.
I chose to ignore him. "Come on guys. Can't you just stop fighting for a minute?"
"I'll show you what fighting means" I heard through the wall.
"Geeze. I can't even here myself think," I complained into the phone.
"Hey! I've had just about enough of you," the guy on the other side of the wall screamed.
Suddenly I got very scared. I pictured a burly, six-foot-two weightlifter smashing his fist through the wall. I hung up the phone, wondering how thin the walls were.
Nothing happened. No fist. No smashed wall. No burly, six-foot-two weightlifter.
I decided to go downstairs for a stress-relief stroll. As I was closing my door, the man from the next room emerged.
Fortunately, he was no weightlifter.
I was about to ask him why he had shouted at me through the wall while I was trying to discipline my kids, when he called to me, "Hey you. I was on the phone with my wife. Why did you have to heckle me?"
All of a sudden, I knew how thin the walls were.
In fact, I discovered that hotel walls come in two thicknesses:
If you're lucky, you get "Turn down the volume on your TV!" walls. If you are less fortunate, you get "Turn down the brightness on your TV!" walls.
Fortunately, hotel rooms are immaculately clean. It's true. The sign says so. Just as long as you don't look under the mattress to find a 1976 copy of Businessweek Magazine and theatre tickets to a 1982 showing of The Music Man.
I don't know why hotels pretend to be so spotless. All that junk under the bed could be used as a marketing tool. "Stay at the Hilltop
