Traveling can be exciting, strange, and bizarre, most especially if you are on the lookout for the aforementioned. In all my years on the road or in the air, I've yet to have a totally uneventful trip. There are those things in airports, truck stops, gas stations, and hotels that make your head snap and your brain question your current reality. I've been accused of having an eye for detail--perhaps it is just the story teller in me that seeks for everything outside the scope of the mundane--and an ability to exaggerate for the sake of the tale. This is NOT one of those times.
Cathy, Cassidy, and I hopped a plane in the wee hours of the April 8th in Atlanta, Georgia heading to Dallas, Texas. We missed our flight the previous day because of a tragedy that I won't cover here; let's just say it was very heart-wrenching. As a result, we were forced to move our flight to the next day for a quick in/out into Dallas followed by a two hour drive to Arkansas to see our son married to his lovely new bride.
After landing in The Big D, we shuttled to the rental car center at Love Field and began the cross-Texas drive to Texarkana to (hopefully) get into our hotel rooms ad catch a nap before the wedding. Since we would be arriving into Texarkana around eleven in the morning, we had not held out much hope for an early check-in, as hotels often do not want to rush their weekend cleaning crews around to accommodate a couple people. I don't blame them for that, but we were very tired and needed sleep.
We arrived at the hotel, the name of which shall be redacted, walked inside and began begging for mercy.
After some finagling with the desk clerk, we managed to upgrade our rooms to suites (oh, yeah!) and headed to the elevator, all of us with road-weary looks on our faces, but with broad smiles knowing that very soon we would be napping until it was time to get ready for the wedding. We walked Cassidy to her room, swept through to make everything was in order and to assure no boogey men were hiding in the closet or tub then made our way to our room. I was dragging behind Cathy because I stayed to give Cassidy a couple last minute instructions. By the time I made it to our room, she was standing outside the door, her eyes the size of half dollars.
"I think there's someone in our bathroom," she said.
"Nooooo," I replied, the disbelief apparent in my voice.
I walk to the bathroom door and knock and receive a sharp reply, "I'm in here!"
We didn't know who "I" was, but I immediately pick up the phone and called the front desk, explaining what we've just encountered in our room. While I'm speaking to the young lady at the desk, the toilet flushes and out walks a gentleman with a newspaper tucked under his arm. He grabs a clipboard he had placed on an end table and walks out while simultaneously apologizing for being there. We came to understand that he was the hotel engineer and, I'm speculating here, he made use of the suite as his personal break room, made apparent by the use of the restroom, the television he left on, and the two slices of pizza that I found in the refrigerator.
Within seconds, the worst imaginable smell began wafting through our room. Cathy and I were both still in shock as the engineer walks back into the room with cleaning supplies in hand. He proceeds to clean the toilet, which did little for the stench emanating from the bathroom. I look at Cathy and can see the same thought on her face that is running through my mind:
Is it common practice for hotel employees to use a clean room before guests arrive? I know, I know...there are things we really do not want to think about, and this is certainly one of them.
The desk clerk vehemently apologized, found us another suite on a different floor and put us in there. Within minutes of my head hitting the pillow, I was asleep. Cathy chose to stay awake for fear of not falling asleep later that evening, but I did not share her concern--I needed some shuteye.
My boy's wedding was nice and went off without drama, which is a very good thing for a wedding. Afterward, we drove from Hope, Arkansas, the site of the wedding, back to our hotel in Texarkana. I fell asleep without much fanfare, thankful no one was dropping a deuce/making Mr. Stinky in our bathroom upon our return.
And if that was not enough, this is when things got weird
Apparently, Cathy and Cassidy did not sleep nearly as well as I did. We walked to the breakfast area of the hotel early in the morning on the 9th of April to get a little food in us before the long drive back to the airport in Dallas. After eating, we climbed into the rental, turned west on I-30 and began driving on the flat Texas interstates that, at least to the casual observer, appear to be black top to eternity. Texas is larger than most countries, with terrain that allows a cow to graze unobstructed across ranchland for miles on end without breaking a sweat. It is as flat as a tabletop, and the white lines on the road serve little purpose other than to hypnotize a driver of a vehicle faced with having to drive across it.
As I stated, Cathy and Cassidy did not get the same amount of sleep I did, and quickly fell asleep in the car while I drove. I have grown accustomed to being the only one awake in a vehicle; this serves as reflective time for me and I really do not mind at all. Just past Rock Wall, Texas, however, I was forced to wake Cathy. She had to see this and I needed a witness.
A fellow was driving an SUV with one of those luggage racks that attach to a trailer hitch. It looked very similar to this:
Standing on that luggage rack was a Shetland pony. I kid you not. The pony had a gorgeous buckskin coat with a blonde mane that was getting slung around by the wind as the driver pushed eighty miles an hour down the interstate. I shook my head to make sure what I was seeing was real. A freaking pony was standing in a luggage rack with no other supports surrounding it. To top it off, the animal was staring at me! Immediately, my mind went into overdrive and within a couple of seconds I imagined an entire conversation with this mini-horse. It went something like this:
Me:
Are you aware that you're standing on a luggage rack attached to a vehicle driving eighty miles an hour on an interstate in Texas?
Pony:
Do I look like an idiot to you? I realize ponies get no respect from humans because we aren't big and strong like our full-sized brothers and sisters, but that makes us no less intelligent. Do you ask human midgets questions like this?
Me:
I've never seen a midget in a luggage rack.
Pony:
Oh, so now you're a comedian, huh? Did you know ponies can suffer from depression and tend to be suicidal?
Me:
Wait, what?
Pony:
That's right. We are laughed and pointed at our entire lives. Kids want to ride us all the time, and for God's sake, when we are moved, we're put on a luggage rack! Do you have any idea how humiliating this is?
Me:
I'm getting a pretty good sense of it, yes.
Pony: Why couldn't I be placed in a horse trailer like a regular horse? Who the hell puts a pony on a luggage rack and drives down the road?
Me: Man, I don't know what to say.
Pony: Oh, I've got more problems, and since you're here, I'm going to tell you all about them.
Me: I'm sorry, but I have to wake my wife up right now to see this. No one will ever believe it.
Pony: I hate you, man. You're going to wake her up so you can both laugh and point, aren't you?
Me: I have to, Mr. Pony.
And that is how our weekend went--from a guy sawing brown logs in our bathroom to a pony in a luggage rack.
