92. The Crummy Motel

[Cue ominous music] Oops. See the unlit, rusted, and lopsided sign? Criminy, watch out for those giant potholes in the driveway! And, isn’t a little odd how empty the empty parking is? Look at that overflowing dumpster next to the office. There’s an overall leaning and swayback look to the building. And, creepy or spooky, someone appeared to be peeping at us through the curtains in one of the guest room windows. Except for desperate travelers like us, Les Désespérés, these things would deter anyone else. But honestly, we felt there was no choice.

The manager seemed extraordinarily delighted to greet us. He proudly told me he had been very recently recruited from Mumbai for this very job. He brought his family from India where they’d run a small hotel. He was enthusiastic about finding a position in hospitality management in the US of A. His wife showed us the rack of brochures, maps and menus, as well as the table where a breakfast buffet would be set up. I had an OK feeling about them, so we signed in and went to see our room, hopeful that our nice innkeepers were actually keeping a nice inn.

Uh…oh! Eww. Deep carpet stains, smell of mildew and stale smoke, dripping faucet in the rust-stained bathtub, gouges in the wall paneling, unknown sticky stuff on the dresser, only one old chair with wobbly legs, and flimsy window curtains that didn’t fully close. No Cable TV, but no matter, the set didn’t work anyway. All I remember about the bed is that the heavy plastic mattress cover crackled a lot when you rolled over. I gagged when I looked in the old ice machine right outside our window—and it made a rhythmic grunting noise, like a female hippo giving birth.  I don’t actually know what a hippo mother sounds like, but that’s all I could think about through the night. We wound up in a seedy flophouse, right in America’s tourist mecca, the scenic New England mountains!

You’d say I could’ve demanded a better room? Actually, I’m afraid that was the better room. Possibly in the entire county. It was late, and once we wiped down the bathroom and checked the bed for bugs, Linda said we can turn out the lights and say it’s simply a bed for the night. “We’ll shake it off when we get going in the morning.” I love that woman, she’s a trooper!

Fifteen years later, I wonder whatever happened to that motel and the innkeepers from India. It's just a thought—that there was not much point to maintaining or upgrading the place if it might be scheduled for demolition before long.  Maybe hourly-rate business was enough to justify keeping it running in the meantime?

The name and location are lost to me, just that it was near a Thai-Greek restaurant with Dutch tulips & windmills décor. Another place for our list of vacation weirdness. When we drove up, I was encouraged by a full parking lot, but the dining room was empty. I commented to the waitress that the bar must really be packed. “Nah, we don’t have a bar” she said, “It’s the men’s Possum Lodge meeting in the back room. (Their Motto: When All Else Fails, Play Dead.)

OK, I borrowed the Possum Lodge bit from The Red Green Show. But the rest is true!

After shuddering off the icky motel feeling, Linda and I drove on and laughed at the absurdity of it all. Actually, we laugh over our motel misadventures all the time, and help me Hannah, there have more than a few!

Afterwords

• Our other hotels on that trip were wonderful, especially a grand old B&B in Newton, Massachusetts.
• Inspiration for this piece came from Darin Volpe, a photographer and writer I became aware of recently. He posted a blog titled The World’s Worst Motels and it set my mind at ease to know that Linda and I have only scratched the surface when it comes to staying in the weirdest places. Darin, my hat’s off to you.