The Worst Motel I Ever Stayed At ... and Why I Stayed

I more than occasionally travel with my job and often find myself sitting alone in hotels and motels. The one I’m in tonight is a middle of the road accommodation. It’s not too snooty and not too Bates Motel. However, I have seen them all.

I’ve been upgraded in a few hotels to the point that I've had luxury suites with 3 bathrooms, a living room, ocean views on private floors with private elevators. I’ve been in hotels where I felt the need to iron my tee shirt and wipe down my sneakers before I dared even walk out of the room into the hallway on my way to work out in the gym. I was Mr. or Sir to every employee I passed from the manager to the maintenance people. While I can say it was uncomfortable at first, with a stiff upper lip, I generally adjusted expeditiously to such lofty treatment.

I’ve also been in a few hotels or motels where I literally threw my socks away rather than putting them back into my suitcase.

One night I can remember vividly. I’d been driving for miles and was dead tired. I was in a rural area and knew there’d not be another place for a couple more light years when I came across a dark motel. I walked into the rural motel’s front office (which doubled for the owner’s living room) and asked the manager as nicely as I could if they had any vacancies. There was no surprise when they said they did. She handed me the key and said, “The door sticks, so you’ll have to give it a little shove with your shoulder.” Then the kindly caretaker did a little mime of knocking the door in like a battering ram to demonstrate the proper technique.

I was beat. I walked across the parking lot to my night’s slumber palace, ignoring the man in an adjacent apartment sharpening his knife collection on his front stoop (No, I’m not kidding). Remembering the manager’s mime, I turned the key and shoved my shoulder into the door to no avail. I then backed up a little (like the movies) and then rammed the door like I were the Notre Dame front line.

You’ll be happy to know that the door did open and that my shoulder has not been right since.

When I entered the motel room, the aroma wafting around the room could best be described as “week-long rodent decay.” There literally was not another place for hours. I just sucked it up and decided I was going to stick it out. You should know … that night I did not only put up with that aroma and the sound of ever sharper knives. I put up with sounds of rodent traffic in the ceiling (sounded like the late rodent’s funeral precession), a four foot water stain in ceiling over the bed (It makes me feel better to say it was a water stain) a bath room with no shampoo and a shower with walls and floors that had a six inches of give in any direction.

Why did I stay? Yes, I was dead tired. However, there are some pieces of the story I didn’t initially tell you.

The manager in the hotel was not a great cleaning lady or exterminator for that matter. However she was one of the single nicest people I’ve ever met. She was nice to me.

Again, there was no shampoo in the bathroom. When I went back to office, she gave me some of her personal shampoo and put it into a little Styrofoam cup. Odd, Yes... but... she gave me her shampoo.

While I was waiting for the key… she was building a repore by telling me about her daughter that recently moved back from Colorado and then asking me about my kids. I laughed at her jokes… She laughed at mine.

She not only mimed the shoulder ram… she offered to use her own shoulder to get the door open for me before I initially left the office/living room. I wish I'd taken her up on it. She was going to go out of her way for me.

If you treat me right, I’ll put up with you’re faults. If you treat me right, I may not remember your name … but I may never forget you.