Advice to motel owners. When a potential guest makes a simple request to see the room first, just say yes. It costs you nothing, and the alternative consequence is a great deal of negative feeling which will probably be posted on the Internet, especially if the guest is me.
"No? What do you mean no?"
"My husband has just gone out, and I'm the only person here, I'm sorry , i cant let you see the room."
It was 11:30pm in Klamath Falls, some 50 miles south-east of Crater lake. I was very tired, and was also expecting an important business call. The motel was the third one I tried (the first had no wifi, the second had malaria), and the person here I was speaking to was this fat comatosed Indian woman with unfeasibly crooked teeth. Instead of asking the first question which came to my head which was, how did anyone agree to marrying her, I went straight to the matter at hand.
"What has your husband got to do with it? I just need a key to see the room. Can i have it?Then I will tell you if I want to stay here, or not."
"I'm sorry I can't let you see the room."
"Why."
"There is only one room left. If you want it, you have to check-in first, but we don't allow seeing the room."
I turned around to look; the car park was indeed full. But this was not the point.
"Why is it so hard to let me have a look at the room? This should be standard procedure."
"I'm sorry, if you want to..." etc etc.
There comes a point where, in spite of fatigue and desperation, one has to draw the line when it comes to poor service. This was unacceptable. I've spent the last 16 years of my life having the shit kicked out of me by clients (or potential zero-spending clients). Admittedly, im a bit of a pushover to the lower ranks and classes, but there are occasions, like this, when I feel completely degraded by the attitude of hotel people when business for them is good, and compelled to just flip.
"Do you know there is thing called the Internet where I can completely destroy your business...etc etc...this is why America is going to ruins...how on earth are you allowed to work on the front desk..." etc etc.
True to form, for all the huff and puff, I have completely forgotten the name of this rubbish motel. It's the first one on the right as you enter Klamath Falls - a town that should, in any case, probably be avoided at all costs.
An hour later, I checked into an 8-motel some way out of town by the highway, utterly exhausted. I rang the bell and i swear it was the same woman who walked out. Except this one actually offered to inspect the room. No thanks, i'll take it. Although the room had a whiff of matured cheddar, the window opened wide and the wifi was silicon valley. I woke up a new man, refreshed and virile, ready to embark on the long and often monotonous road - first north, then east - past the beautiful city of Bend, over the prairies of Oregon, across the entire state of Idaho, north again touching Montana, and finally into the pinewood forests that began the sacred, Forbidden City-esque approach to America's most prized natural jewel, Yellowstone.
(Photos to come)
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