It was such a sweet plan. It is seldom I can convince Roy to splurge on a hotel room; especially when there were other options, but to my pleasant surprise, this time he agreed. We would spend the night before Easter at a hotel.
It was a very simple plan. We had two family events for Easter, one on Saturday night and the other at noon on Sunday. We were only an hour and a half from home, so we COULD have made two trips, but I didn’t want to. I began weeks ago on my campaign to get that night in a hotel room on Easter Saturday.
“The dog really could use some time away from us,” I mused one evening when she was being particularly bothersome. “Maybe if we spent a night away from home, she could have a night away from home at the kennel. I really feel like she would enjoy that.” I ignored the steady stare of the dog, who seemed to be aware somehow that I was attempting to dump her for an evening.
“Well, I’ll see,” came the non-committal reply. I was not satisfied with this. “We’ll see,” is code in our house for “I don’t want to do whatever you have suggested, but give me time to think of an excuse.”
While we were working on the random disposal of the dog, I also pointed out that it wouldn’t be fair on a holiday to horn in with family. We couldn’t stay with them. In addition, with the price of gas, how could we justify driving back and forth for two days? All of my arguments seemed reasonable to me, and even the issue of the dog finally was settled. Much to her chagrin, she was going to spend Easter at the kennel and I was going to get my night in a nice hotel. For those of you worried about the poor dog, don’t. She definitely got her revenge.
With a gleeful heart, I made my hotel reservations and we started on our journey…our long night’s journey. We left the dog looking resentfully out at us through the bars of the kennel and hit the road. We had a delicious supper at a relative’s house and had a delightful visit. Then, it was time to go to the hotel.
When we checked in, the clerk asked us, “Do you want to be on the first floor or the second floor?” It’s Easter weekend…what would be our concerns? “Second floor,” said my husband, adding to me, “It might be a little quieter in case people arrive late.” I would look back upon this observation with pain later on.
We got to our room at little after nine and we decided we could watch a little television. While we were watching Jack Lemmon in “Under the Yum-Yum Tree,” I kept adjusting the sound, hoping to not disturb our neighbors, but after a while, I became aware that they had theirs a little loud too. Oh well, it can’t be helped!
When we had entered the room, we observed that the cover to the heating unit had fallen on the floor. Not wanting all that mechanism to be exposed, we put it back on, but nothing we could do would stop the clatter and rattle when the motor would heat up. Again, a minor thing.
It was about 10:30 when we turned the television off to go to sleep. It was then that we noticed that the neighbors appeared to be playing rather loud music. We lay in the bed, trying to lull ourselves to sleep to the “boom…boom…ba….boom,” for quite a while before we realized that it was really getting very loud and there was a lot of loud talking and laughing as well.
I was outraged. Someone had the audacity to use their hotel room to have a loud party. On my fought-for night in a nice hotel, I was being subjected to some hooligans and their extremely loud and terrible music.
The volume kept increasing and I began to do a slow burn. I visualized myself calling the desk and with a few well chosen words (interspersed with swear words) advising the managed to calm down the ruffians or I should be forced to call the authorities.
Before calling the office, I thought I would do a little reconnoitering to see exactly where it was coming from. Oddly, the minute I went to the hall and closed my door, I could no longer hear it so plainly. Perhaps they had calmed down. I went back into the room and the volume rose again.
Now I was convinced they were having the party in the parking lot outside our window. When I pulled aside the window shade, I found I wasn’t too far wrong. They were having a party, one they had rented a party hall for at the hotel. They were having a wedding reception/dance in the ballroom…located right below our room!
So there was indeed, nothing we could do. We lay there in the dark of our room listening to the thrum of drums, the clang of dishes and doors and the shrill notes of some very loud songs. In addition, we got the clatter and rattle of room’s heating system, just in case there were any lulls elsewhere. We dozed in the few minutes when the band took a break, but even that was disturbed by the talking and high pitched laughter of the smokers having a cigarette break outside the windows.
My husband bore up under this disaster of a night’s sleep pretty well, but he did once or twice make such comments as “sure glad the dog isn’t disturbing our rest tonight,” or, “do you think we could get them booked under our windows at home some evening?”
“I can’t hear you,” I grumbled. “Because I have my head wrapped in this pillow. If you make any more comments, I’m going to wrap your head in a pillow.”
Around 2:30 or so, the party broke up as the bride and groom presumably went on their way to a honeymoon and a happy life. We fell into an exhausted slumber, and if we snored, we did not wake up each other. I’m sort of hoping some of the party-goers were around us and they were kept awake, but it’s hard to know those things for sure.
The lowest blow hit the next morning. As we dragged out to our vehicle to pack up, a group of people were talking in the parking lot. I was so grumpy, I wanted to turn to them and say, “Quiet down and what are you looking at?”
When I looked over at them, however, I realized, that beyond them, spread out over a large area of land, was another whole wing of the hotel, far away from the dance hall and its sounds. So, in other words, the clerk who checked us in asked the wrong question. Instead of “first floor or second floor” the question should have been, “quiet room in the other wing, or hot spot room right over the dance floor.”
I could write you more about my night of faulty heating covers, wedding music and joyous laughter, but I’m just too tired. I’m going to bed early tonight and if the dog knows what’s good for her, she won’t make any noise, either!
dropsinthewell 