We Left Early
We were on route to Washington, D.C., when we started to lose daylight and had to find a place to stay. The motel we found didn’t have a paved parking lot and the air was full of dust. I think I recall seeing some piles of cement blocks but not much else.
We pull in and a lady with a pink muumuu and hair curlers comes out to our car, telling us she owns the place and that all the rooms are taken and the rest are being renovated. Behind her is her son: a meaty behemoth that may not have had all the lights on upstairs. She does have one room and she can let us have it at a discount. My dad jumps at this chance.
I remember there was a pool in a courtyard behind the main building. My mother scouted it out first and then insisted we were not to go anywhere near it.
Our room didn’t have a door lock on the front door. The bathroom didn’t have a door at all. The carpet was a long shag rug in dark blue and green. Nothing felt or looked remotely clean. There was one very hard bed and one lamp, and not much else.
My father phones the front desk to find out why the door lock isn’t working. The result was the son knocking on our door with a chair we could use to prop under the doorknob. My father spent the night trying to sleep in a chair by the jury-rigged door. We paid and left early the next day.
Story credit: Reddit / Wishingwurm