Dear Econolodge

I don't consider myself naive, but I suppose the naive would not have the capability to make that determination.   In my decade in the hotel industry, I've seen some proverbial "things" and many of them cannot be unseen.  However, I like to think in the happy little hamlet I live in, there's a certain limit to the ills that can occur, so long as someone stays away from the "wrong" part of town.  In my town's case, that is a one block radius surrounding a bar and liquor store that act as an outlet for most of the hedonism in the area.  I recently learned how little I actually knew. 

The Econolodge in town has been there for quite some time.  Sure, it isn't fancy.  Nestled between the urgent care clinic and the Popeye's chicken, it's not exactly in prime real estate.  Anything bathed in an overwhelming mist of chicken grease and antiseptic can't be  THAT luxurious.  My friend T, who I have mentioned before, called me, telling me that he was in town with his job as the world's tiniest archeologist, and that he'd been put up by his company in this hotel. We made plans to meet up after his shift ended on his second day in town.

When he go to my house, he was slightly rattled.  When he told me what he had to endure, it sounded fantastical, but I knew he wouldn't lie.  I told him we'd go together to get his things, and that he could stay with me for the next couple of nights until he had to leave town.  We got into his tiny-mobile and took off.

Pulling up, it struck me that while somewhat outdated, the motel didn't look all that bad on the outside.  It was a little worn, and a little faded, but I'd seen much worse.  He pointed to a door on the ground floor, and noted he had seen three different men come and go from that room within an hour the night before.  There were no signs of life at this time, so we went upstairs and entered his room.

The first thing I could tell when entering the room was that they had used a freshener to eliminate smoke.  All hotels use pretty much the same thing, as it is the most effective, but if you know the smell of that chemical, it's just about the same as smelling the smoke.  This mocked the frail "No Smoking" sign above his small television.  Being trained to inspect rooms for housekeeping, I decided to see how the room stacked up to the threshold of cleanliness my hotel deemed acceptable.  Surprisingly, I found little evidence of dust on picture frames or the head board.  The bathroom, while small, and dimly lit, was fairly clean in comparison to a truck stop men's room, but not quite acceptable for a paying hotel guest.  Lifting the sheets, I didn't find any evidence of the dreaded bedbug, which relieved T., but this was where the good news ended. 

As I checked the walls and ceiling, I couldn't help but notice the small dime to quarter sized patch holes all around the room at odd intervals.  Likewise, it was clear at some point someone had pulled both the towel rack and shower curtain rod out of their mounts on the wall.  The front door showed signs of having been kicked in at least once, if not daily, and the security chain was nore of a decoration at this point that anything functionally useful.  In the words of Willem Dafoe, there was a firefight. Snitches had most definitely gotten stitches in this room.  T. opened the fridge to see that the bottom has entirely rusted out, and the not-so-subtle stench of despair and rot crept from it's eggshell painted bowels into the room.

Finally, T noticed that the front of the nightstands had cardboard taped to the bottom to make sure nothing rolled under them.  Lifting the one, we found bottle caps and garbage, but the true gold was underneath the second.  Countless cigarette butts confirmed my previous guess, but the real winner was the slightly used crack pipe that lay amid them all.  We took this as a cue that our time was done, and hurried to the car.  As we drove away, we noticed that a man had taken a seat outside of the room below T's.  He sat smoking a cigarette, not looking at us, but also, not-NOT looking at us.  It being four in the afternoon, I couldn't think of much reason the man would have to be sitting in a chair outside of the door of a cheap hotel, but then something hit me.  The chair he was sitting in looked nothing like the chairs that were in T's room.  Yes, it was a wooden chair, but nothing about it was the same as the sitting chair I had seen.  The man had brought this chair from home. 

Yes, this pimp had found the chairs at the Econolodge not to his liking, so he brought a chair from home.  Pimpin' ain't easy, especially if your ass isn't comfortable. 

Dear Barfly

Yesterday, I drove to Philly to get my taxes done.  I do this every year, because it's what I do.  My accountants father did my parents taxes, and his father did my grandparents taxes in their tiny kitchen, at the same table my grandmother used to sit at and listen to the radio while smoking cigarettes and throwing whatever produce was handy at my uncles. 

This time, there was a backup by the time I got there, so I walked to the Polish butcher down the road for some babka and fresh kielbasa, and then walked to a different Polish butcher for more of the same.  That killed roughly half an hour, so with little other options left, I took a seat at the bar next to my accountants to watch the Flyers game on TV and wait.  I got a grilled cheese and coke and settled in for the inevitable loss that the Broadstreet Bullies were cooking up, and was able to enjoy this midday meal for about thirty seconds before you and your idiot friend at the other end of the bar got louder. 

Your friend, who was obscuring you, must have been going through some sort of midlife crisis, just for the fact that he was dressed like an 18 year old delinquent despite being in his forties.  Obviously, you'd both been drinking for quite some time, even though it was only 2PM on a Saturday.  I only heard you for a bit, until you stood up and blessed us all with your full glory.  Thinning hair dyed jet black and Brylcreemed straight back to a greasy perfection, glasses that were just try to be a bit too hip but that were undermined by the combination of the Flyers sweatshirt that was tucked into your jorts adn the boat shoes you were wearing with socks. 

You both were loudly and obscenely bemoaning your soon to be ex wife, peppering any pause with a phrase meaning "Copulating female dog".  You wished upon her several venereal disease, most of which I am fairly certain you would have been the cause of, and eventually moved on, for some reason fixating on all of the elderly cats in their twenties that you wanted to hit. 

It's not my place to begrudge someone the grieving of their lost marriage.  I have no idea what or if she had done something, or if you were to blame.  That never came up in your ranting and drunken proclamations.  What I do know is that you are a dude in a bar at 2PM, drunk off his ass in a pair of jorts.  I'm thinking you were at least a part of the problem here.  This kind of thing doesn't just start because you were dumped.  She didn't leave you, and you decided it was time to tuck in that stained sweatshirt, hike up those socks, and get thee to a brewery.  Part of that was already there, and damned if it isn't going to help you rake in all those sweet sweet kitty cats you were talking about so vulgarly. 

Dear Buster the Calamity Collie

I am an animal lover.  In addition, most animals love me.  The only exceptions to this rule include every Mainecoon cat ever born, because they were forged from the very fires that heat Satan's jiffypop, an obese blob of pudding, fur, and hatred that was once a cat named Baby, and you, Buster the Calamity Collie.  Oh, yes, you act like you love me.  You pretend that all you want is my acceptance, love, and all the tummy rubs I can give.  Your actions speak much louder than this, though, and your aggression will not stand.  You can't fool me by placing your head on my leg, or by discretely placing your head under my hand so that I have little choice but to pet you.  Yours is the face anxiety.

 

Yours is the face of menace.

Yours is the face of impending, unrelenting, unstoppable chaos and fear.

People think you are so delightful with your boundless energy and constant need for attention.  That's because they only see you in small doses.  They also don't tend to realize that you are like a case of tinnitus mixed with an opera sung by Cher and Gilbert Godfrey.  You are always emitting noise, be it loud, soft, high pitched, or gratingly low.  You can be sitting on a comfortable couch, surrounded by people you love, and still constantly whine for an hour through the GODDAMNED FINALE OF HARPER'S FREAKING ISLAND...just because you want to.  You are the reason people drive slow in the left hand lane.  You give people that feeling of slimy cold unease they get when they sweat too much and then enter a store with really strong air conditioning.  You are the reason there will never be a sequel to The Rocketeer, even though Billy Campbell still looks great and the technology available would make it look amazing.  You cannot be happy until everyone else is miserable, and that is highlight with every last interaction you've ever had with Murphy the Customer Service Cat.

Murphy is the nicest, most happy-go-lucky cat to ever walk this earth, and this infuriates you.  If he walks by, on his way to get a small drink of water, or to find a place to nap, you viciously growl, jump up, and try to eviscerate him with the teeth that you haven't rotted out with years of drug and alcohol abuse.  Poor little Murphy, not the most sprightly of felines, is forced to duck, dodge, and flee for his life.  He can be found later, wedged behind whatever cover he can find, still winded and confused at the level of hostility and aggression that was hurled at him.  Then, there's his playtime.  Murphy's chief joy in life comes from the few precious little fuzzy balls I bought him years ago at the grocery store.  There's only a certain type he likes, which they no longer make, so he doesn't have many.  Should he politely stand at the bannister, as he does, and gently lower a paw to request I throw him a ball to play with, you, you bastard son of sin and sacrilege, go into a frenzy, trying to intercept the ball.  Should he actually get the ball and begin to sing his joyful ball playing song, you lift your head and howl in misery, trying to cover the sounds of merriment with pain and anguish. 

You even turn the nice things I do for you into awful lessons in the futility of pleasing you.  A few weeks ago, you spent the majority of my day off acting like a normal, well behaved canine.  I decided to reward you by taking you for a drive.  The lurid, high pitched mating call you cackled at every passerby could not be stifled by the radio, and you forced my hand at keeping the windows closed as you carpet bombed the car.

Not learning from my mistake, I saved a jar of peanut butter I had finished off and gave it to you to lick clean.  Two days later, you again pretended to be a "good boy" and I tried to scratch under your chin.  From the front of your jaw to your collar was a solid, unyielding crusty shell of dried peanut butter and a complete lack of shame.  You thrilled in the fact that you had made me touch that mess, and let out a shrill keening wail as I tried to disinfect my hand.  Still trying to be a hero, I tried to clean you with a wet paper towel.  At first you acted like a petulant child, turning your head away from me whenever I tried to get near.  Then you snapped at me, struggled, and tried to hide behind a chair the did nothing to conceal you.  When I raised my hands in frustration and cried out "Why won't you let me help you?" you lifted your head, smirked at me, and fire burned in your eyes. Also, I am fairly certain, you turned into a horrible looking lizard, but only for a second.  Then you were just plain, awful, feculent Buster. 

If you were a person, you would split your time between watching reality television and pulling the Hitler card on people in the comments section on the Fox Sports forums while Wayans Brothers movies play on your VCR.  Every one but Blankman, because you hate Blankman. 

Dear Top Hat Guy

The other week, I was at the casino, getting my monthly free dinner splurge.  Afterwards, I wandered around for a bit, gaming and enjoying myself.  The only reason I set any of this up is to point out where I was, or more importantly, where I wasn't.  It wasn't a wedding, gala, or inauguration of any kind.  I had the day off, I was out relaxing, having fun, and getting hit on by a very attractive cougar while I had a belly full of waffle fries and golobki.  Things were a-ok in my book, until I look over the head of the very short but well put together lady touching my arm to see you standing ten feet away.  Thanks to you, I had to explain to that lady, who, by all methods of standard weights and measures, had a ratio of boobs to body of nearly 43% thanks to her short stature and ample bosom, why I was discreetly taking pictures of a guy.  Specifically, you.  You, with that dopey look on your face.  You, with that brand new set of Etnies kicks, and you, with that damned hat.

Part of me wants to applaud you.  Clearly, you give not one damn what anyone thinks of you.  If you did, at the very least you wouldn't be wearing mom jeans.  Maybe, by writing this letter, I am committing some extraneous form of body shaming.  I started think I could be in the wrong, because no one else seemed to be having the reaction to your dumb, stupid hat that I was.   Perhaps I am the one that needs to rethink things.  Surely in my past I had worn stupid things to try to get attention.  Sure, I was younger, and mostly drunk at the time, but I had done it. 

So, there I was, having a moral crisis as I stood in front of The Walking Dead slots with a woman that was very nearly half boobs.  I thought, maybe more people should be like you, just running free, doing what they want because it feels good.

Then I remembered that we've tried that before.  They were called hippies and beatnicks and they ruined everything.  You are lucky I was indoors, where there were no rocks I could throw at you, you Maynard G. Krebs, Wavy Gravy looking son of a bitch. 

Dear People Who Want Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites

Some people don't understand what it is like to not be able to find Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites.  Either the Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites come easy to them, and always have, or they just happen to have found some Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites and were lucky enough that they never lost them.  Some people though, are to ugly, awkward, or busy, and it is very hard for these people to find Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites.  Those people either die alone, without the warming comfort of Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites, or they take more drastic measures to find some Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites to call their own.  Some people, like me, join websites where other people looking for Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites go, so that they can finally have what they've been wanting. 

I exhausted the somewhat limited bounds of "People my friends are willing to introduce me to" quite some time ago.  It has never worked out well, which probably says plenty about me and the quality of Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites that I have to give.  Since then, I signed up for online Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites sites.  I've been on two sites for a few months now.  They have guarantees on the one site that if you don't find your Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites soul mate in six months, they'll give you another six months for free. They are that certain that you'll find someone to share in Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites together. 

One would assume that, to have signed up for these sites, a person would be eager to meet someone else.  Otherwise, why would they be on there?  Sadly, this seems to be the farthest thing from the truth.  Without hyperbole, I have sent message to over 500 difference women on those sites, ranging from a simply "Hi!  How are you doing?", to the more complex "I really enjoyed reading your profile.  I'd really love to chat with you and discuss Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites".  One lady who I really didn't want to waste a chance on, so full of Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites she was, I wrote "Hi! You are an amazingly gorgeous lady with a well thought out profile. It would be a pleasure to me if you'd like to message a bit and get to know each other,and to talk about Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites".  Minus three people, I have gotten the worst possible response.

No, they didn't just write back "Ew, no.".  They didn't tell me I was too ugly or poor to share their Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites.  They didn't take the kind and polite route and say "I'm sorry, but I am not interested."  They simply read my words, and did nothing.  I know, because you can see when someone has read the message you sent.  They felt that my Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites and I were not worth the few keystrokes it would take to tell me that a better idea than talking to them would be to fornicate with myself. 

That's right.  People that have a hard enough time getting Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites that they have to join the site can be cruel enough to ignore someone else in the same boat as them.  They can be cowardly enough to hide when someone puts themselves out there offering them all the Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites they can give, because somehow, kicking someone when they are already down has become such an acceptable thing that 497 ladies out of 500 think it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.  The other three?  They wrote to me once or twice and THEN they stopped writing back.

It may shock you all to realize that the Ooey Gooey Awesome Cheesy Chewy Bites that I mentioned in this letter are really just a euphemism. 

Dear Kentucky Jim

You have been reticent since you left for parts unknown for your new job.  I don't remember if it was with the government, the carnival, or an all male burlesque show, but I remember you said there was a grueling training period and that you anticipated being very sore.  None of this means that you can't return a text message or an email to the greatest friend you've ever known, but somehow you still manage to ignore all communications.  Then, like the teasing trollop I am sure you are at The Stripmaginarium of Dr. Peenasus, you told me you would call me last Saturday.  Even though I was on vacation in Atlantic City, I carried my bluetooth around all day, taking up valuable cigar space in my pocket, just so I could talk to you and see how the accommodations were for you at Wiggling Willyzs Weinerz Warehouz.  Alas, you never called, so I am forced to send this letter to update you on the goings on back home.

I've been well, thanks for not bothering to ask, jackass.  Since you've left, I save money not having to travel over the bridge to visit you, and I can eat at any Indian, Mexican or Asian restaurant I want because I don't have to have dinner with someone who is racist against any culture that has rice as a staple food.  My workouts have been goings well, but I'm sure they are nothing compared to the exercise they put you through to keep you in shape at your new job at Urethra Franklin's Rhythm and Boobs Revue.  Everything else is fine too, so enough about me.

As you surmised, when you left town, The Angry Scholar lost his only support system.  Adrift in a sea of angst and academia, he can be found nowadays wandering the halls of his campus library, muttering facts about long gone cultures and stats of Pokemon characters.  He's also taken a fancy to performing interpretive dances to Fine Young Cannibals songs at coffeehouses.  Not during open mic nights, just at any point he feels like it, during regular business hours.  He has been deemed not quite the entertainment spectacle I am sure you are at Kim Dong Il's Imperial Penis Palace and Neverending Omelet Buffet, so he's been banned from every coffee house in town except for the one called "Cofee Beens" run by a guy whose legal name is Ketchup.  I'm not really clear on if that's a first or last name, or if this is some sort of Cher or Sting situation, and frankly, I don't care to find out.

Your former roommate, Mr. Estevez, has been doing a valiant job trying to clean your old apartment since your departure.  You left an alarming amount of scratch paper lying around crumpled in various rooms.  Most seem to be failed poems from your goth phase, as well as several sheets of paper with variations of the signature "Master Lucien Oblivion".  They are dotted with stains of eyeliner, your unmistakable shade of Midnight Misery, dripped from tears of unfathomable sorrow.  He did find something in the heating vents of your room that you may not have meant to leave though.  I'm not sure what any grown man would need with hidden stashes of over three hundred My Little Pony dolls living painted with personalized names on their chests, but sure enough The Angry Scholar has taken possession of all of them, except for the blue one with green hair you named "Rambling Roger".  The Scholar says he doesn't trust Roger, and gets very defensive when the name is brought up.

Your mother and father are doing well.  Very well in fact.  One gets the feeling that you might have been dragging them down this whole time, and that since you have left, they've finally come into their own.  It's nice to see them smiling again mostly.

Anyway, I'm sure you are busy with your next shift at Barbara Ehrenriech's Nipple and Dimed, so I guess I probably shouldn't wait for you to call this weekend either, even though you said you would since you missed last weekend.  It's cool.  It's only Sunday night.  There's still plenty of weekend left.  You'll be calling any minute. 

Dear Superbowl Commercials

This might as well just be an obituary for the golden age of Superbowl commercials as much as it is a condemnation of the current classless class of dreck that was trotted out last Sunday.  Superbowl Sunday used to be a night of championship level football interspersed with the best that advertising agencies had to give us.  Now, the commercials seem indistinguishable from one that you would catch premiering during a rerun of Shark Tank.

There were only two commercials all night that I heard any positive reviews about.  The first was the Budweiser Clydesdales with the puppy.  Yeah, sure.  No one is going to hate a commercial with a cute little puppy, so that was a gimme.  More surprising was the second, the Brady Bunch commerical with Steve Buscemi and Danny Trejo, mainly because it was a rehash of an idea they stopped doing two or three years ago.  So, those were the best ideas that the supposed best minds in advertising could come up with, and that companies felt were worth shelling out millions of dollars for a prime slot.  Yet, the two most non football related topics discussed from the broadcast were the weird and uncomfortable Dead Kid commercial, and that freaking shark at halftime.  Let me tell you, I definitely want to hire a life insurance company that feels like bumming out millions of people that are busy shoveling guacamole down their gullets at a friend's house.  Maybe for my birthday, the company will come out and psychologically torture my housepets while I'm forced to watch.

There are still good commercials out there.  I still laugh every time I see the Value City coffee table commercial, and Blake Bennett playing straight man to the children in the cell commercials got some great mileage.  Somehow, though, on the biggest night for commercials all year, we get nothing of substance. 

There may never be another Terry Tate, Office Linebacker ever again, and I weep for the future.