First Night in Budget Hotel #2

Last night was a nightmare.

Don’t get me wrong – I love our little room in only the way a marginally OCD person can. I love it for its economies of space and order. It is tiny. Just big enough for the 2 fulle beds with a little nightstand in between. At the foot of one bed on the facing wall is a built-in, recessed shelf that serves to just hold both of our packs. Beneath the shelf, there’s a short bar for hanging clothes high enough that they just barely sweep the floor.

The bathroom is a 3x8 feet! I know it’s hard to imagine, but they’ve designed it masterfully. It is simply divided in half by a shower curtain, while the tile floor remains constant throughout.

But why was last night a nightmare, you ask? Our teensy room is equipped with a ceiling fan and a window unit A/C. And we have no fewer than 2 remotes and one wall switch with 10 settings. Unless one studies these options before retiring, they can cause a lot of confusion in a dark room in the middle of the night.

Let me tell you about it.

Throughout the night, Ricardo and I alternately awoke either freezing or sweating and fiddled madly with these various controls attempting to cancel out the work of the other. I once woke up and thought I was on the Koliber – the ceiling fan was running at warp speed like a propeller. I thought we were about to take off. And the A/C was blasting at 19 or 20 degrees. I was so cold and so disoriented that I only made things worse with my efforts at the various buttons and switches and dials I was fumbling with.

I ended up stacking pillows and towels on top of myself for warmth and as I drifted off to sleep, I dreamed I was the Road Runner (meee-meeep!!) and that I set explosives under Ricardo’s bed and blew it up and then sped off down a deserted Mexican plain. The dream was so powerful that I woke myself up laughing at it!!!

Then I was awake and freezing again.