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I didn’t put a lot of planning into our road trip this year. First, I went online and found a few areas out west that had been airbrushed to photographic perfection. Then I checked-out reviews of hotels at these destinations. I booked the ones where reviewers had NOT written: “This hotel had a moldy smell,” “the wallpaper was hanging off the wall,” or, “my early morning shower was just a cold trickle of water.”
So when my husband, Stan, and I arrived at our hotels, we found sweet smells, affixed wallpaper, and hot showers. Unfortunately, I’d not read reviewers who’d written, “I had to wear ear plugs day and night.” Because I’d missed those, we also found the noisiest people on Earth had checked in at these same hotels-in rooms next-door to us, above us, or across the hall.
The first night of our trip we were startled awake at 3:30 a.m. when the ceiling above us shook so hard I thought I was witness to a sign of the Apocalypse. This tumult contained the occasional shouted word, but it also contained, shall we say, “specific” noises. That’s all I will say for now, but I said to my husband at the time of the event, “What should we do?”
“Don’t worry,: he said. “It will be over soon.”
How wrong he was.
Dazed by lack of sleep, we somehow managed to drive to the second hotel the next day. But noise perpetrators struck again. Three hours into our stay two kids’ baseball teams invaded, occupying all other rooms still available. The teams practiced running bases in the corridor, screaming, “You’re out!” every 12 seconds. After that, they collectively watched “The Simpsons” in the room next to ours, at a volume no doubt detectable three states away. I’d never before known Homer to say “d’oh” and have it hurt my head.
“Can these kids be sent home and reattached to their mothers’ umbilical cords?” I asked my husband.
Stan reminded me that some of their mothers had come along to chaperone, although we hadn’t seen an adult with the team since one shooed a kid out of the hotel bar earlier that day. Fed up, we headed poolside. That’s where we found the team supervisors, splashing and yelling, the din resonating to where we went temporarily deaf. At least that condition allowed us to sleep that night.
The next day we arrived at our last hotel, our hearing fully restored. The lobby was serene, but we should have known better. A sign welcoming “The Smith/Jones Family Reunion” sat next to the main desk. As we neared our room, one of the reunion family members staggered out and greeted us in a voice so booming, the lights flickered.
“Char and Ed,” he said, “you made it!” He hugged my husband.
“I’m not Ed,” Stan said. “Go away.”
“Sure you’re Ed,” the stranger said, slurring his words. It was going to be a long, loud night.
At 1 a.m., unable to sleep, I opened the door and witnessed Smith/Jones family revelers in various states of undress, dancing in and out of their rooms, singing, drinking, and slamming doors. The Addams family would have been a welcome relief. At 4 a.m., they either fell asleep or passed out. We checked out a day early.
Never were we so glad to get home to our own quiet bedroom. After 13 hours on the road we were asleep at midnight, grateful that our nearest neighbors were 30 feet away, sleeping quietly in their own houses.
At 3 a.m., our town’s tornado sirens went off.
