Sunday Bloody Sunday

The thing about working at a motor lodge that fancied itself a rock-n-roll hotel was that eventually, someone was bound to go through a window. I just didn't expect it to happen during what management optimistically called our "wet parties."

These Sunday pool gatherings started innocently enough - just another way to fill rooms during off-season. But they quickly mutated into something that made Sodom and Gomorrah look like a church picnic. Picture three hundred people crammed into a space designed for forty, all circulating around a pool the size of a postage stamp, with exactly two escape routes: a lobby door and a gate, both roughly as wide as a coffee table.

I watched it all from my post at the front desk, counting ambulances like some people count sheep. The first stretcher arrived before sunset - a particularly enthusiastic dancer who discovered that concrete doesn't share his enthusiasm for interpretive movement. By nightfall, we'd logged three more medical emergencies, two noise complaints from buildings three blocks away, and one very confused pizza delivery guy who took one look at the chaos and fled. With the pizza.

It reminded me of the time a certain famous rock band stayed with us. They'd booked several rooms and were apparently practicing their gymnastics routine - running from room to room, doing somersaults on the beds. This struck me as ill-advised, given that most of our furniture dated back to the Carter administration. Sure enough, mid-flip, one of them shot through a second-story window like a cork from a champagne bottle. Miraculously, he wasn't hurt, though I can't say the same for the window. Or my nerves.

The parties eventually got banned, officially due to "insurance concerns," which is corporate speak for "we're amazed nobody died." Sometimes on quiet Sundays, I'll look out at our now-peaceful pool area and remember those chaotic afternoons. The water is cleaner now, the deck chairs actually contain their original stuffing, and nobody's trying to grill hamburgers on a diving board. It's safer, saner, and infinitely more boring.

Though I still instinctively duck whenever I see someone doing cartwheels near a window.