Tearjerker

Okay, you all just better take care what you wish for…I may just pull out a tearjerker to balance the scales.
Take this for example:
Friday night Angela, Abby, and I drove to Vancouver, WA for Jamey G. and his 5th birthday party on Saturday! It was quite the affair, lots of swimming and presents and cake. It was a lot of fun. You can see more of it at Jamey’s Flickr Site.
The uncommon excitement for us started at 9:45 Friday night. We rolled into the Salmon Creek Motel, booked online with 2 out of 5 stars. Budget room for a budget trip right? We got more than we bargained for.

Rolling up it was obviously a cut-rate affair. Abby was being extremely good but it was two hours after bedtime and she was just getting wound up.
We get our key and move the car to the back of the glorified shack, under the stairs, next to the dumpster and the abandoned car. The rain dripping like a Shakespearean tradgedy. Hopped up on Monster Energy, I dutifully unpacked my girls.

Thinking to myself.
Hm that’s funny, the smell in here reminds me of the FourPlex in the Highlands?
Keep unpacking, ignoring my animal instinct to flee.

Oh wise one, keeper of the crystal ball and bearer of enough common sense to know when enough is enough (ala Joe Lake hiking trip circa 2001).

We are not staying here.

One thing I have learned in the last 5 years is when you hear that command in her voice, something is really wrong. It has a period at the end of it, not a question mark or ellipses. It just is. (For those of you doing the math…that is right, I only first learned it 2 + years in).

Abby, dopey and tired: Where are we going?
Daddy, just plain dopey: We are going to change rooms honey.
Why?
Cause Mommy has a crystal ball for things like this.

I didn’t really say that, mind you, but I am the one telling this story now so I can festoon it with whatever clever witticisms I came up with 10 minutes after the fact that I wish I would have said at the time. To be clear, I was thinking that, at least.
So I approached the front desk and used the best line in the book. They never tell you this perk comes with the package when you marry, but I am telling you now, if you aren’t married, it is one of the best perks outside of…well…children. The Blame Shifting Perk.

My wife is really creeped out by that room back there. Is there any way we can get switched to a compar….
Oh sure, (she hastily shot me a knowing look)
Room 26, right next to the office.

I thought to myself, ‘She is so kind. She knows what it is like to have a wife who gets creeped out easily by abandoned cars. Or she at least knows about The Blame Shifting Perk. And no charge! I am such a great negotiator.’
Again, there you go ignoring the instincts Dopey.

Right next to the office, all lit up, next to the friendly lady that stays up all night next door to meet wayward travellers. What could be better?

What could be worse. It is fortunate The Crystal Ball never lets down it’s guard.
A quick round trip to the bathroom in this gigantic, incomparable upgrade is met with a sneer.

Abby: “Can I jump on the bed?” more of a statement really as she is already actively partaking.
Daddy: Unpacking the car.
Mommy: Straight from bathroom reconnaissance performs due diligence on the sheets.
Daddy: Just setting down the last bag and closing the door.
Abby: b O u N c I n G

There are HAIRS in the sheets.

There it is again, that sound? That surety of position that ends in a simple, unstated period.
I lean in for a closer look and notice more. Only a three year old can add the necessary clarity.

there’s HAIRS and BOOGIES in THEBED!

Angela says: What are we going to do?

Now this, as approximately half of you know, really means ‘what are YOU going to do because I have done my part, I have paid attention to my crystal ball, I haven’t ignored my instincts And there is no way on this green earth I am putting my baby in either of these ginormous beds And I will take action if necessary but I am allowing you this one chance to atone for your cheapness.’

I weakly offer some options.

“We can sleep on top of the beds?”
“Or maybe the floor?”
Abby: Again a small voice of reason. She must get it from her mother. Like it’s a game she says:
C’mon Mom! Let’s get ANOTHER hotel!

Shake it off. Listen to yourself. Listen to Abby. The window of atonement is rapidly closing.
Dopey? Hello, McFly? You are not backpacking across Europe. If this is grossing YOU out think about what it must be like in reality.

Without another syllable I strode out and back to the front office where I laid it on the line, no blame shifting this time (maybe I am growing?).
I got a refund.

Maybe it was the look in my eye or maybe it was the true knowledge behind that previous ‘knowing look’ the lady had launched only minutes before.
If she was a good at poker she would have read my tell. She could have kept her $45 and I would have taken it as a cheap lesson. There was no way we were staying there that night.

So for the third time that night we ( I ) packed the car, we drove up the road to The Shilo Inn and a mere two hours after we rolled into town Abby was sleeping soundly in a clean and comfortable bed, her soft little blonde hair strewn on a clean pillow.
In May she will share a clean pillow with her baby brother or sister.