Those of you who have not served hard time in the squalor of a third world prison will have difficultly fully grasping this story. It involves a retched ten minute nightmare I had yesterday at the Mold City Motel in Denver (my apologies to all bacterial strains of the mold community). I would use the motel’s real name except that it’s probably mob owned, and my liver is quite happy in its current location. I managed to escape the Mold City Motel alive, and (at least to my knowledge) free of any incurable diseases, like the bubonic plague.

When I am alone on a road trip, I never make hotel reservations. I have always wondered when my luck would run out, and I would end up sleeping in my car. On this trip, hotel after motel were full. It was late, and I was exhausted. I was beginning to resemble a sloth, only not as alert. More like a sloth on Valium. It was at this dire point that I had the incredible misfortune to stumble headlong into a black hole of the accommodation world – The Mold City Motel.

My lodging standards are not particularly high, picture something just beneath a 1949 Georgia county jail cell. I couldn’t imagine that any accommodations could break me. I was Teflon.

I was elated when the manager told me he had a room, and I pounced on it like a starving hog on an acorn. I knew that at sixty bucks it wouldn’t be the Taj Mahal, but I was a thirsty man in the desert. Then the manager handed me back my Visa with, I kid you not, two ratty towels rolled up and secured with a rubber band. My concern shot to DEFCON 4. It would jolt to Level 5 a few minutes later. Let me clearly express that the balance of this story is 100% true. This really happened.

I cautiously walked to my room. Along the way, I passed numerous people who appeared to be: a. drug addicts, b. drug dealers, c. professional ladies, and d. mangers of said professional ladies. Still, I assured myself that the room couldn’t be THAT bad. Tragically, I was wrong. In fact, I have only been this wrong three other times in my life. One being, at the age of eleven, having watched a Lone Ranger episode and deciding to jump off our barn onto my horse. Let’s just say that this deeply painful memory did not involve injury to the horse.

The room looked like a scene from a movie depicting a hotel in war torn Sierra Leone. The motif was “grime.” Everywhere. On every surface. I would compare it to a pig sty, but I’m afraid the American Swine Association would sue me for slander. There was no bathtub, just an enormous mottled stain in the shape of a bathtub. Even the stains had stains. I say “stain,” although in truth I didn’t try to rub any of it off. I was afraid that if I unrubberbanded (I had to invent this word to tell this story) a towel and rubbed a surface, there may have been significant grime transfer which might precipitate a projectile vomiting event.

The double bed had a single king-size pillow, but it only wore a standard-sized, what appeared to be previously used, pillowcase pulled onto one end. Spots on the pillow were visible through the case. A SWAT team of bacteria no doubt stood ready to spring on anyone INSANE enough to place his head on it. I pulled the blanket back to reveal a sea of spots from beneath the onion skin thick sheet. I made the mistake of rubbing a dark gray spot on the sheet and it rubbed off. Mostly.

The manager feigned shock when I handed him back my rubberbanded roll of towels and told him I was leaving. He refused to refund my money. Motel policy.

After fleeing the scene, I belatedly checked Trip Advisor on my iPhone. I stress that the following are REAL quotes from actual travelers:

“[Y]ou are seriously better off sleeping in your car.”

“My wife saw housekeeping in action. After people checked out he would make the bed without changing the sheets.”

“[T]his place should be shut down as a public menace.”

I drove off looking for a place to park, curl up in my car seat and grab a few Z’s. I awoke the next morning completely refreshed, and without a single kink in my neck. The king size bed in the well-appointed one bedroom suite I discovered while searching for a parking spot was just what the doctor ordered. True, the management had neglected to place a mint on my pillow, but I survived the hardship. Remember, I’m Teflon.

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