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Two and a Half Months in a Hotel...
With a Cat
 Closing Comments by Nicki Lynch If you've never spent long periods of your
life living in one room with one bathroom and one cat, you might consider trying it.
It's not as bad as you might think. But then again, it might be.We had the opportunity to do just that when we
moved to Maryland last fall. I'm not sure how people expected us to sell and find a
home in two and a half weeks before the move, but to a person they all asked if we were
moving into a house. Naturally not, but it never seemed like a stupid question to
them.The drive north took two days due to starting
late on the first day and having two cars and one cat. Dick brought our eight-year-old
Siamese cat, Sesame, in his car, while I brought the houseplants. Both cars were
stuffed with what we would need for two months of living in a hotel. That included:
clothes for work and play, coats (fall coats and we should have had winter coats as
well), shoes, radio, microwave oven, VCR, video tapes, plants, cat litter box and cat
carrier. Oh, and books and fanzines too.We only got as far as Bristol, Virginia, the
first day before it started getting dark. We managed to find the last hotel room in
town, since the whole town was booked up due to a bit drag racing weekend in progress.
It was the first hotel room our cat had ever stayed in and I think she liked it. She
kept looking at herself in the full-length mirror and peeking out of the full-length
window into the courtyard.The final leg of the trip was memorable for
Dick in that Sesame decided he needed some diversion. So, she spent most of the trip
yowling and roaming the car. At one point, Dick said she sang a duet with Mick Jagger
on the radio. But we did make Maryland and Germantown without incident.We settled in the same hotel we stayed at when
Dick was interviewed forhis new job. It was a standard Quality Inn/Holiday Inn type of
hotel, but with an unusual assortment of clientele. When we had checked in that first
trip, most of the people weran into that evening were business people. But the next
morning in the lobby, they seemed to have transformed into biker-types, complete with
tattoos and leather jackets. We eventually discovered that rather than transforming
during the night, both lifestyle-types stayed there in apparent complete
peaceful coexistence. And both turned out to be nice enough neighbors.
Since small, well-behaved pets were welcome in
the hotel, we happily shared the room with Sesame. She wasn't much trouble, or at
least any more than usual. She did seem confused that the front door didn't open to
the outside any more, but that didn't stop her from continually asking to go out. I
have no idea what she thought about looking out a window five floors up, but she
occasionally got up there to sun herself. She also gained a fan club of sorts with
the two women who were at the front desk most weekdays.Since Sesame was an indoor/outdoor cat, I took
her out on good days for some exercise and fresh air. We soon developed a ritual where
we would stand at the front desk, Sesame on top of it, me standing beside her, for a
chat with "her" friends.After a while there, it had become obvious that
we were not the only people living there long-term. The local school bus stopped there
each morning to pick up a number of children, and there were other children that hung
around the hotel all day as well.Since I had the advantage of being Sesame's
owner (which offered a chance for gossip with the woman at the hotel desk), I
casually mentioned this observation one afternoon. It turned out that the hotel we
were staying in had about 50% long-term occupancy, with the majority of long-termers
being construction workers and their families. A smaller group were homeless people
who either worked ro didn't, had also been placed there by the local government. We
were unusual in that we fit into neither category. She (who was one of Sesame's
biggest fans) also confided to me that she liked us the best as we caused the least
amount of trouble.I wish I could have said that about the hotel.
It had a "disco" and restaurant, but neither were actually run by the hotel. While
the restaurant was very good, five nights a week we had to listen to loud thumping
from five floors below, until about 1AM. Not to mention the rowdy drunks and their
cars.But what really set apart this hotel
experience from the usual fan experience of hotel living was the number of fire alarms
that we had while there -- 11 in all, usually at odd hours of the night.The first one happened just after midnight.
We got up and dressed while Sesame tucked tight in the covers. She seemed surprised
when we shook her awake to snap her leash on, and was not happy to be carried into a
hall where there was some horrible noise blasting. After we were allowed to return to
our room, though, she seemed annoyed that we didn't want to stay up after that.The reason for the early-hours alarms was that
drunks in the disco were accidentally pulling the alarm boxes. Later, we were told it
was due to a fault in the heating system, cold weather having begun. Whatever the
reason, about once a week, we had to get up in the dead of night, and leave our room.
We got so used to them that we joked, when we were at a party, that we had to leave so
we could get back in time for the fire alarm.I was also there for one of the rare daytime
fire alarms, but it wasn't very exciting. Sesame had a great time, because not only
did she have several people fawning over her, we were allowed to walk back through the
kitchen, rather than walk all the way around the hotel to get back to our rooms. I
don't think Sesame had ever seen so much meat in her life.Several times we were audience to interesting
displays of temper by temporary guests as well as some of the long-term people. One
very pregnant woman with four small children in tow gave the night manager a great
deal of verbal abuse before declaring she would never come back down for
another fire alarm.She was as good as her word and most of the
residents seemed to have followed suit. The next fire alarm, just us, Sesame and one
guy (who must have been a first-timer to all this) went down to the lobby. Even the
local firefighters didn't seem very enthusiastic and didn't spend the usual length of
time checking the hotel out.I was also looking for a job while we lived in
the hotel. Several of the people who returned my calls thought I worked at the hotel.
I had to explain each time that my husband had a job here, I was with him, and we were
still house hunting. I guess it isn't unusual to move from one place to another in
under three weeks in Maryland.After living out of suitcases and restaurants
for weeks, we finally found a house we could afford. About the same time< I got a
semi-firm job offer. So after two-and-a-half months there, we finally moved out in
December.I don't know if they ever did solve their
problems with the fire alarms. I thought about having a monthly fire drill at our
new place, but Dick vetoed the idea.I guess men just aren't very
nostalgic. |
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