Hourly rate

I finished summer classes on Wednesday. While attempting eighteen master’s level hours in ten weeks was not my best idea, it doesn’t matter. Fait accompli. I grabbed my favorite boots, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, my swimsuit, and a sundress, loaded pup in the car, and headed south. Nothing restores a girl’s spirit like a road trip. It was well after dark by the time we made it out of the city. It also happened to be storming. I flipped the wipers on high and kept driving. At one point the rain was coming down so hard the road lines were obscured. I toyed with the idea of pulling over under an overpass and sleeping the storm out but pressed onward. We drove through two tornado-producing storms on our way to the hotel that night. Two. Perhaps the overpass idea had merit.

We finally made it to our pre-booked accommodations around 1:30 in the morning. Pup was being a brat, I was exhausted, and all I wanted was a bed and pillow for a few hours. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I noted the room doors were on the outside of the buildings. In my past experience, that has never been a good sign. The lobby door was locked, so I rang the bell – five times. A rumpled man emerged from a back room rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“How much did you pay for the room?” he asked.

“I have no idea. DH paid for it online. Forty?” He eyed me suspiciously.

“It will be fifty five dollars then, plus tax. If you have a pet, it’s twenty more plus a hundred dollar room cleaning fee if she destroys something. You are on the second floor.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “She’ll be sleeping in the car.”

I grabbed my bag and the key. A wave of musty air hit me as I opened the door. A queen bed with two flat pillows took the majority of the space. A wall mounted lamp cast a yellow glow over a lonely towel, washcloth, and bar of soap resting atop a spindly brown table. The TV was directly from the 1960’s. I did some quick math and determined there was not a hundred dollars worth of objects pup could destroy unless she managed to maul the questionable mattress to a timely death. I thought about going back to get her but decided against since she was sleeping quite happily.

I have been on many a trip where a layer of road grime was part of the allure, but I desperately wanted to shower and brush my teeth that night. There was a tiny problem with my plan. The shower was still wet, the curtain was half pulled, and there was a special something floating in the loo. (Did I use loo appropriately or does it mean the entire bathroom? I’ve wondered that.) I looked back at the bed suspiciously. The motel did rather have the feel of a ‘rent-by-the-hour’ place.

I just would have rather they cleaned the rooms between the hours. I switched rooms, and pup upgraded from the car to the motel room – pet fee waived.