Hotel, motel, whatcha gonna do today?

I am not sure what I was thinking.  Okay, actually I am.  I thought that if we were travelling for two weeks, living out of suitcases and crashing in hotels, we needed to do our best to save some money, especially as other expenses were soon to be mounting what with the new house, car, school, relocation, et al.  What I wasn't thinking was what an $80 a night hotel was going to look like, smell like, feel like, so I went into it hopefully optimistic.  A very fancy friend of mine had stayed there.  She said it was really accommodating, close to where we were looking for a home, and inexpensive.  She is still very fancy.  The hotel was...not as she remembered.  I think when we overshot the entrance and ended up, just yards away at the corrections facility where two forms of ID needed to be shown to get, we should have wondered what was up.  Or when the parking attendant said, "You know I hate that shit!" when we rolled up and then said, "Oh my bad, you need your parking?"that we were so not in Kansas anymore.

At many of the beaches in Barbados when one finally came out of the water and brushed off the sand, there were makeshift showers rigged out of plastic or metal piping, sometimes some twine, maybe, if the creator of said construction was ambitious an on/off switch other than a simple garden faucet.  Didier and I used to remark how easy it would be to draw tourists with a nicer set up, correct showers, paved floor to stand in, dare I say, hot/warm water even.  I could have made mention of this at the reception desk of the Ramada Inn over by the airport (see, I would tell you eventually about my foolishness.)  Standing in the dark (the dark because the two lightbulbs in the bathroom had burned out and we only discovered this when we returned to the room at night) with a faucet that read hot and cold and then produced the opposite or scalding or ice cold or a trickle with no rhyme or reason, I flinched and twisted and contorted and shivered. 

The girls were not able to take a bath as the stopper did not work and I was extremely grateful for that as I did not want those people sitting, swimming, kicking, soaking in that dark, dank tub.  We had to use the water from the tub to rinse water on our toothbrushes because the sink faucet let out eye dropperfuls of water at a time.  It was clear though.  Thank you for the small miracles.  I made them put toilet paper down on the seat when they had to use the bathroom.  Virginie is potty training.  These are things you learn even if you can barely get up on the seat.  At least with this mommy you do.

As we snuggled in for bed, all four of us a king-sized twin bed combo lashed together, I found a hair on one of the squishy pillows and promptly threw it, the pillow, onto the floor.  When I pulled back the blankets I was greeted with a lipstick kiss on the white cover, which found its place next to the comforter that had already been hurled to the floor.  (Look, I watch Oprah, I know what's on those things and I do that at the better establishments.)  And in a "you can't make this shit up" moment, when I went for the extra blanket provided, it has a cigarette hole burned through it.  We turned off the A/C and slept on the bed, sheet covered, rolled together sardine packing style with the two little ones in the middle and Mommy and Papa holding up the ends to make sure no one fell onto the dirty floor.  The floor that we were all disallowed to walk on without shoes.

It was laughable and we would have moved out after that first night, but we were scheduled to look at a large number of houses and condos in our hoped for new town and had to race out to make our 9:30 am appointment.  The hotel policy was to have notice given before 6 pm the night before check out and we just didn't think we would make it through all the day's events and still find a place and be able to check out by noon.  The search was thrilling, scary, depressing, exciting.  We saw lots of properties, some that had potential, some we adored, and some that were just downright filthy.  Didier, the superclean Frenchy, could not help but remark how dirty some people actually are.  Given a gorgeous property in a gorgeous location, could they not do better than that?

We were exhausted at the end of the day.  Excited that we found a few that thrilled us.  Hopeful that one could be ours.  Bummed that we had to go back to the hotel to think, consider, reflect when we knew it would be impossible to relax.  It was.  Impossible I mean.  We arrived at the same time that the guests from two different convention groups were arriving.  The first group seemed to be a large Latin family gathering from the United States and Canada who had not seen each other in at least the last ten years.  There was a lot of stopping in front of the front door, parking lot, reception desk, elevator, vending machines, business office, restrooms, water fountains, any place really to chatter on and on, "Ah que linda!  Ah que guapo!"  I couldn't be happier to see people reunited.  I wanted to get to bed.

When Bunny in her red wig, cut off jean shorts, tattoo of a cat on her upper thigh, lace front something or other showing her 55 year old plus-sized modeling wares got on the elevator with the Chinese food delivery man, I figured this shit was a rap.  When she said in her bourbon and cigarettes voice (and this from a raspy voiced woman myself), "Ooh baby, y'all's cute!" to my kids, I thought, nice.  Later that night a few of the crews from the Biker Club Convention revved up in the parking lot doing wheelies and giving pounds and hi-fives as I tossed and turned, dreaming of the speed packing I was going to get done to get us out asap in the morning.

In the morning, I awoke to read a message from my realtor with a twelve page lease agreement on a property that we absolutely loved that basically stipulated that we could not live freely in the house, as if it were our own, care for it like normal human beings, and raise our family.  It had clause after clause, loopholes in which to trap us into giving away, signing away our rights.  We had to give it up.  Strangely, I was able to honor myself and my family immediately upon reading this drivel, but never thought for a moment about what booking us into an $80 a night shit hole said about my feelings of worth.  I knew I did not deserve that.  Knew that no one in my life, in my family, would ever consider that for themselves.  Inside I must have known what to expect from a hotel by the airport, with such a low rate in a busy part of the country, (this wasn't some little town with very few visitors and travelers).  I had to have known that I was selling myself and my family short. 

My sister spoke out.  My dad bit his tongue saying only that I should move those babies if it was not good enough for them.  And for me, what is good enough for me?  There are eye opening moments if we stop and check them.  I read my internal gauge and reset it.  I am worth more than that.  I want to be comfortable, to feel secure.  I want my family to feel the same, Didier and the girls.  I used the excuse, and a valid one, that we could not afford it.  It is expensive to relocate, to start over, to change one's life, but what am I willing to pay financially, emotionally, spiritually for my own safety, comfort, security?  It is certainly more than $80.

I booked us into a family style suite hotel closer to the city and it costs much more that the first.  The girls came in, pulled back the sheets on the bed and snuggled in to play with their toys.  They said, "Mommy, we like this hotel better than the other one because it has a kitchen.  It is like a real home."  For the girls, a kitchen where we can sit around and chat while Papa (or Mommy sometimes) can cook, where we can listen to music or watch TV is home.  And when you are in transition as we are, providing any sense of home, of safety, or security is a blessing.  They are all sleeping.  Didier in his/our bed, the girls in theirs/ours.  It is quiet.  It is a hotel and for the next few days/week until we find something to call our own, this will have to do.



(c) Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.