You’ve Been On The Road Too Long When…

I must apologize in advance.

This story is not in any way related to motorcycling, and it doesn’t even have any pictures (thankfully) but in my opinion, it is a story too good not to share. And, as you’ll see, while it may not be motorcycle related, it does involve ‘Going’ and is, without too much of a stretch, a story of ‘Where I’ve Been.’

As a freelance television audio engineer, I’ve spent well over a decade of nights sleeping in countless different hotel rooms, mostly without incident. Well, that’s not actually true, there have been enough hotel incidents to fill a book, which someday I may actually get around to doing. But in all of those hotel incidents, until this week I’ve never committed the ‘Big One’ – that classic faux-pas that makes me giggle every time I hear of it happening. To someone else.

The scene: Very late last Saturday night, I drove a rental car four hours to St. Louis for the WWE Elimination Chamber Pay Per View. I dropped the car off at the National lot five minutes before closing time, and now I’m in a taxi, almost to the hotel, tired and ready for bed, when two very happy friends start texting me from an Irish pub with a very late last call to meet them before their night is over. I try to blow them off until one friend texts me with a zinger that he knows will work, “Don’t be a PUSSY.” At this point my taxi is very close to the Hyatt, and it is well after midnight. In a stroke of serendipity or blatant bad luck, my cab manages to pass right by the bar my friends are in, so, refusing to “be a PUSSY,” I tell the driver to forget the hotel, and let me out at the bar instead. I make my grand entrance to the Irish pub with luggage and camera backpack in tow.

By this time, my buddies are three or, more accurately five or six sheets to the wind, and Bill, the bartender, has become their new best friend. In an effort to help me catch up, best friend Bill starts pouring me triple shots of 15 year old Glenfiddich neat. 15 year old Glenfiddich is a drink best sipped slowly, and also is a drink best sipped on a full stomach – both facts that I know from experience – both facts that I hardily ignore anyway.

Thankfully, before too much time passes, our new best friend Bill announces last call. With a third triple whisky rapidly pouring down my gullet, it’s (mercifully) time to go. I collect my luggage, which I am proud to have remembered, and check into the Hyatt around 3 AM.

Around 4 AM, all that whisky wants out, so in my groggy, foggy state, I sleepily stumble out of bed to answer the call of nature. It takes about five full minutes to realize I have a problem, then another two or three to realize just how big and how bad my problem really is. First off, instead of going into the bathroom, I managed to walk out into the hallway. At four AM. Without a room key, and hardly an idea exactly which room is mine. With a full to bursting bladder.

In my underwear. Thank God I don’t sleep in the nude!

Now the precise details of what transpired next are a little hazy, but I will say, as a precaution, if you ever find yourself in the Hyatt in St. Louis, I would strongly recommend against getting ice from the third floor ice machine.

With at least that part of my problem solved, I now have to make the ultimate walk of shame – in my underwear – to the lobby – in my underwear – where I am greeted – In. My. Underwear. – by a smirking desk clerk that looks like she just lives for small moments like these.

“Locked out of your room?”

“Um, yes.”

“Do you have any ID?”

“ID? Um, no. I don’t usually carry any in my underwear.”

“Security!”

The security guard, alternating between snickering and openly laughing, leads me on what is definitely the longest route possible back to my room, and openly takes great pleasure in parading his helpless victim – me – around the Hyatt for what feels like a day.

The next morning, I wake up thinking, “Wow! What a fucked up dream I had,” until I realize that where there should only be two, now there are THREE room keys on the nightstand. My nightmare wasn’t a dream. The extra room key proves it. It happened.

It really happened.

I never checked the ice machine.