With Poo Knighted flight 323 and the Festival of Smells now parading off into the back of my mind like suppressed childhood memories of deranged clowns, I drag my wheeled travel companion through the busy terminal and head towards the overhead signs for ground transportation.
My bag has been the victim of airport abuse on countless occasions, and so I do my best to avoid checking my bag whenever possible. If I asked a stranger to guess how old my bag is, they would probably say it was ten years old, when in fact it isn't a day over two. Luggage years are nearly as tough as dog years. I would have to say that I'm predicting that by year five of my bag's faithful service to me, I will have to put it down humanely. No one knows exactly the type of abuse that luggage suffers once it goes through that secret black car wash curtain. By the looks of my bag, I would guess that luggage is moved from place to place via catapult, then dragged through a mixture of broken glass and crushed black permanent marker. All the while a Sarah McLachlan track plays quietly in the background as luggage is crammed indiscriminately into tiny cages and wheeled out to what might hopefully be your airplane. The only thing missing from the luggage is big teary eyeballs. Please help the luggage... just a dollar a day.
For this flight, I managed to spare my bag from that unimaginable torture and abuse by being able to carry it onto the plane. I travel light because it saves me time leaving the airport. As we walk past the passengers crowding around the baggage claim anxiously awaiting the first bag to emerge from the luggage dungeon, I look down at my bag and smile. My bag has a scar across his face, a strange size 15 shoe print on his back, and problems getting around on his forth wheel from an incident that took place at the San Francisco Airport. To this day, he has never said a word about it, and I don't bring it up. The scars of that San Francisco trip will haunt both of us forever. We press on through the revolving door that leads outside. The person exiting behind me gets a bit overzealous and pushes the spinning door with all the force of a guy that is pushing a revolving door way too hard. As the door quickly picks up speeds reaching tornado status, it clips my right heal, and I'm ejected into the crisp outside air. Welcome to Denver. My bag stumbles and trips on his injured 4th wheel. I glance backwards just to confirm the level of douchebaggery that was exiting behind me. Just as I suspected, a level 5. I reach down to retrieve and console my bag, and let it lean on me like a wounded soldier as we head towards the lineup of taxis and exhaust fumes. Let's get through this trip together, old friend. With a new found determination, my bag straightens out his 4th wheel, so that we are no longer walking in small circles and cussing like a crazy person.
Taxi drivers always feel obligated to make small talk. "How was your flight?" taxi cab Carl asks as he loads my injured friend into the trunk of the tiniest clown cab I've ever seen. I've learned long ago not to go into all of the sorted details of my travel. "It was great." I shudder as my nostrils and my mind begin the healing process. I slide myself into the back seat and give the driver the hotel address. I don't know if this particular driver had some sort of nervous twitch, or other nerve condition that affected his driving foot, but I found myself rhythmically rocking forwards and backwards in my seat for the next six miles. "Everything okay?" I ask Carl. "Sure, why do you ask?" he says. "I thought maybe we were running out of gas or something." I hint. For some reason, Carl lacked the ability to coast at a general speed, or accelerate without mashing the gas pedal to the ground, or slow down without slamming on the brake, or stay in any particular lane. It wasn't long before I was incredibly car sick. I lost count of how many middle fingers saluted us along the highway, as the clown cab jerked along down the freeway in some sort of honey bee flight pattern.
By some form of miracle, or maybe witchcraft, our clown cab arrived at my hotel without causing any serious injuries. The last time I remember being that nauseous was when I was a teenager and rode the Zipper ride at a local carnival. You know the Zipper ride? It's those swinging cages that they lock kids into, and then the carnie spins and flips the riders around until someone projectile vomits. Clown cab Carl hands me my bag, and I stumble up to the entrance to the hotel lobby like a drunken pirate. It's a smaller hotel, with nothing very memorable about it. After a while, most hotels and hotel rooms look the same to me. The talking head behind the counter begins spewing the pre-recorded speech about all of the amenities of the hotel, which included a "gym" which consisted of exactly one non-functional treadmill. If you want to train yourself to stand in one place for a specific amount of time, then this was the piece of equipment for you. I always check Yelp reviews everywhere I go, and one particular item stood out to me for this hotel. It boasted about having an in-room VCR.
I show the phone screen to the hotel employee and say, "I really do hope that you have a VCR in my room, because I brought my VHS copy of The Goonies, which I haven't been able to watch since 1996!"
"Um, I don't think we have a VCR." he replied.
Bummer. I take my little folder with the door key inside of it, and turn to look for the elevator.
"Sorry sir, but the elevators are down. You'll have to use the stairs down the hall."
Not a big deal, as I'm just on the second floor. My bag gives me an apologetic look as I begin making our way up to my room. Stairwells always smell like stale urine to me. I think that's because when you're in the stairwell... urine the stairwell. Ha ha! I get to the second floor and exit the stairwell into this extremely long hallway that reminded me of The Shining. Of course my room was the very last room on the right, which was about a mile walk from the stairwell door, and ironically close to a non-working elevator. I pull up Google Maps on my phone, and follow the walking directions to my room. By the time I made it down this long stretch of carpet, I had enough stored static electricity to power a small city. I'm embarrassed to say that I was out of breath! I swipe my key card at the door of my room, and it doesn't work. I try it again. Then again. I decide to try it another thirty or so times before growling "Open up, F****ER!!"
And open up it did, without any help from me. There stood a beast in the doorway of a very dark room. He was mostly fur, and a huge gold chain intermittently peaked through his mane. So just to recap, it was wearing a gold chain, and almost nothing else.
"WHAT?!" it roared.
"I'm so sorry!" I step backwards and look again at my key envelope. "I thought this was room 298." I stammer.
"It is. Who are you looking for?" It snarled.
"No one, that's the room number that they gave me."
"Well, I already have this room, so you'll have to get your room straightened out with the lobby desk." The last part of the sentence I was able to still hear even though it had slammed the door while still talking.
So I walk back down the Shining corridor, keeping one eye open for anyone riding a big wheel. After a mile or so, and a flight of urinal stairs, I mosey up to the lobby desk.
"Checking in?" he says. Is he kidding me?
"Uh, someone is in my room." I said, as I hand over my fraudulent envelope and key card.
"Oh, sorry about that, there shouldn't be!" he replied. None truer a statement was spoken this evening.
"Well, we are all in agreement. Am I reading this number wrong?" I point to the envelope as he begins to peck away on his computer keyboard.
"Oh, here's the problem. I wrote the wrong room number down for you. You are supposed to be in 297, which is across from 298."
Awesome. Who needs to get bogged down by all of the crazy details of room numbers and whatnot? Back I go on my hike through urinal stairwell, and down murder hallway to my room. I tip-toe like a scared ballerina as I approach the beast's lair across from me, carrying my luggage to my chest as to not make a sound. I swipe my card at room 297, and this time I get a comforting green glowing light and muffled beep. I quietly open the door and sneak in as to not wake the beast across the way. I then slowly hold the door behind me as it closes with a soft metal "click". I then lock every possible locking mechanism, and slide a chair in front of the door. Sanctuary.
With a long day of travel now behind me, and a lot of work to get done on my laptop before the morning, I set down my belongings and head into the bathroom to splash a bit of water on my face. Before I can even run the water, I look down to see two curly hairs waving at me from inside the porcelain sink. Blah! This is going to be a rough stay.
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