Once upon a time dear reader,
I used to travel for work.
As a performer, I’d spend weeks on the road, roaming from motel to hotel, from one small town to the next.
I quite liked staying in a hotel. I was working in theatre so that meant we were on a budget. This meant that most of the places I stayed were dumps.
The beds all featured mattress gullies that would make the Grand Canyon blush. And recently?
Some rooms once permitted smoking as such these hotels all had that 1980’s rat bag hotel smell - a fine combination of pine-sol and mothballs.
Their polyester curtains may have obscured the view of my hwang as I danced naked in front of the mirrors, but they certainly did not block out the light.
In short? They were delightful.
Usually found in some long abandoned ‘downtown’ district I could come and go with relativize anonymity. On top of that, I had plenty of time alone to either watch terrible cable television or phone home to my ever suffering wife left alone to tend to a newborn or two on her own.
There were times that I felt guilty out there on the road. There were no dishes to wash nor diapers to change. My job was to go into schools, cause a lot of chaos, squirt some teachers with a water gun, lie sweatily on a few laps, lap up the laughs then collect cheques at the end of the day.
It was a pretty sweet setup.
UNLESS
Unless of course I met some helpful people who wanted to provide me with an authentic local experience.
And in order to provide me with a local experience?
They’d inflict some fucking BNB upon me.
And BNB’s? They’re an affliction, a disease and a plague to travellers everywhere.
I still shudder at these words.
You see back then, there was no AIR BNB
There were simply BNB’s
And these?
Holy fuck were they EVER uncomfortable.
Not the beds. The beds were fine.
But like Sartre once said L'enfer, c'est les Autres.
The people are the hell.
Especially when it comes to a ‘traditional bnb’.
The people who run traditional BnB’s?
They’re terrible.
Hideous.
Monstorous
Time vampires
Really.
They are the worst.
Hitler?
Bad.
Pol Pot?
Terrible.
Stalin?
Unquestionably bad.
Mao?
The second worst ever
The only people worse that that parasite Mao?
They run BNB’s.
Invariably they’ve got some sort of fancy antiques in an old farmhouse
And that farmhouse?
It’s got a story.
And the dining table has a story.
And the walpaper has a story.
And…
FUCK SHUT UP BOOMER! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE I WANNA PLAY SOLITARE AND YELL AT PEOPLE ON HOCKEY MESSAGE BOARDS.
But no,
I wasn’t just brought there to be ‘the artist in schools’. I was there to entertain the fucking BNB owners and let them bore me to tears with their stories about how many fucking coats of paint it took to make that credenza look so spiffy.
And that was just during check in.
After that?
Breakfast.
Breakfast is a show, a chance for them to demonstrate their cooking prowess and subject you to wave after wave of food whether you want it or not.
I could go on but my eyes hurt with the memory of such torments.
You see dear reader.
I wanted the motel with the shitty bed and all of the privacy and anonymity that came with it.
Staying at the local Bnb?
These stays were typically an off season donation to the local arts society. The group bringing me in saved money by having me stay at the Bnb rather than in a hotel.
But this came at a cost.
And that price was paid by me.
I was expected to not only perform in the local schools but then?
I’d have to pretend to be interested in 19th century furniture and how Gregory whipped up the most miraculous holindase sauce.
More than twice I sat there at the breakfast table at a traditional Bnb with a circular silent mantra calling on God to strike me down. Oh dear god in heaven strike me down at this table spare me this living hell and kill me now.
Typically these BNB ‘hosts’ thought they were being great hosts by putting on a show and ‘delighting’ me with their story telling.
In reality though?
I just wanted to be left alone.
Worst of all though?
They never asked if I was interested.
If I dropped hints that I was tired or busy, there was no acknowledging my time. It was the Patsy and Gregory show featuring all of the rickety old garbage they picked up at dirty shop and restored with a little sanding and varnish. If I’m ever shown another motherfucking credenza, I will blow up every fucking Victorian home on the motherfucking planet.
I’ve spent years thinking about those monstrous dictators, trying to understand absolute evil. But Pol Pot never made me pretend to enjoy a conversation about wallpaper before forcing me to eat an artisanal yogurt parfait I didn’t want.
A dumpy hotel is privacy.
A BnB is a cage.
And the only true hell is having to compliment Gregory’s hollandaise when all you want to do is drink bleach.
Next time this happens?
I’m going to drop my pants and take a shit on one of those ugly plates displayed on their plate rail.
And when the next guest shows up?
They’ll likely claim it as patina.