A Story about Lodging: Flashback 2005

It looks sort of harmless, right? So back in aught-five, Lizzie and I did a tour of San Diego, and then drove up to the Grand Canyon, and then back to California through the Mojave desert (which we didn't really think through) landing us back in San Diego. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say San Diego? I meant Imperial beach, which is neither Imperial, nor a beach. Okay, it's a beach, but it's definitely not Imperial. The drive took us 14 hours, so we were pretty busted by the time we rolled up to this lovely Super 8, which is apparently in walking distance from Tijuana. What they don't show in the picture is all of the dirty, dessicated mattresses stacked against the windows. That's a bonus.

We rolled into Imperial Beach long after nightfall, and dragged our suitcases into the front office, where the creepy front desk attendant made a creepy comment about how many beds we needed, followed by lascivious eyebrow waggling. For better or for worse, Lizzie and I are much bigger smartasses than perhaps belies our benign looks, and Lizzie made a comment back that was hilarious and horribly inappropriate, and which I won't repeat here, but will tell you in secret if you ask. The comment did come back to haunt us a little.

So we dragged ourselves and our stuff upstairs to our second floor suite (alas, no dirty mattresses lying against our windows) and I decided it was time to return all that diet coke I'd drank back into the wild. However, whoever had used this particular bathroom before us had obviously been, let's say, facing a challenge, and the toilet erupted with a disgusting mass of filth heretofore unseen by me (or anyone else, I'd imagine). I screamed in what I assume was terror as the flotillas of human waste surged through the pipes and onto the floor. I turned the water to the toilet off to MAKE IT STOP, and meanwhile, heard another squawk of terror from Lizzie outside the bathroom. I surveyed the scene, and it appeared that someone had tried to force something inorganic, like a diaper, down the pipes (along with the remains of what must've been one hell of a feast). I dropped some towels on the floor, washed my hands and wondered what poor Lizzie was facing out in the sleeping quarters that could be as bad or worse as what had just happened to me.

Turns out there was a wad of crusty body hair on her bed.

At this point, we should've beat feet, as they say, but we had driven 14 hours and were exhausted. We didn't want to speak to pervy desk clerk again, given the deployment of the hilarious and inappropriate comment, so we decided to throw the questionable, hairy bed sheet onto the bathroom floor to soak up the remains of the day, and leave at the crack of dawn. Sleep, oddly enough, remained elusive however as the carousing just outside the building was intense, and people were apparently into smashing empty booze bottles against the motel walls. Hence the mattresses, I assume.

Alas, life was not great at this particular super 8. Also, the poor, poor housekeeper. I hope they just burned all of the sheets. And the bathroom. And potentially the entire building.