But we were tired and at least two hours away from the next town. So we settled in. David had done all of the driving that day, so he immediately crashed for a nap. I couldn't sleep, so I propped myself up in the bed to read. I am not exactly a Pollyanna, but I do try to make the best of a bad situation. So I just pretended I was in a third world country and that this was the best hotel in the region...
It seemed safe enough. The walls were so thin that we heard a multitude of conversations going on, both near and far, so it was sort of like an early warning system of approaching pedestrians. And the door had a couple of locks on it and the windows were securely painted shut. After maneuvering through a series of switches that suggested several iterations of re-wiring or remodeling, switches which may or may not have actually done anything, we managed to turn on the air conditioner, and in just a few minutes David had dozed off.
I had just downloaded a mystery to my Kindle, when suddenly the bed started to shake lightly and the lamp on the bedside table started to dance about. I wondered if we were in an area that had earthquakes, but then I heard a not-so-distant metallic clang and felt the rhythm of the vibration change slightly, and I determined that our room must back up to the hotel laundry.
Just the night before, we had stayed at a 'vintage' hotel, and since the chain on the toilet had broken, I had to McGuyver it with an earring and a paper clip. I told myself I could deal with this, too.
A few minutes later there was a tremendous clatter and David sat abruptly in the bed. We just looked at each other, and I shrugged. He had just gone back to sleep when it happened again. "What was that?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," I said, "but I think it is the ice machine." Sure enough, twenty minutes later the sound was repeated and we figured the ice machine must automatically relieve itself on a predetermined schedule. This seemed to put David at ease because he immediately pulled the cover up and acted like he was going back to sleep. I was pretty tired, so I took off my glasses and squirmed down in the bed.
"You aren't going to sleep in your clothes, are you?" David asked.
"I am not getting in that bed unless I am fully dressed," I answered, "and if I had a hat, I would wear it."
About that time we heard another weird vibrating sound and I noticed that the telephone was blinking and sort of grumbling and moving about slightly on the dresser. I answered it and heard, "Good evening, this is Dean with Guest Services. I was just checking to see if everything was alright."
I was a little overwhelmed by all of the things that were not alright, but I knew instinctively that Dean was sitting in the lobby in his comfy pants, and that Guest Services consisted of a laptop on a card table, so I said, "Yes, everything is fine." And I went to sleep.
Several hours later, I had to go to the bathroom, and I must have waked David up. He said, with no small degree of exasperation, "What are you doing now?"
"I am looking for my shoes!"
"Why do you need your shoes?"
"I have to go to the bathroom."
About that time, the iced dropped, and it sounded amazingly like "Ba-Dum Tshh," the sound you often hear after a stand-up comedian tosses out a bad joke.
If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
I don't know. But when I get to my new home, I think I will buy a new, medium height bed.
Today I will close with this:
Morpheus:
Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.