Brigid asks
“Do you ever wake up and not know where you are?”
Good lord, have I ever.
About a hundred and fifty million years ago, during te cretaceous era, I went down to Florida on one of my first out-of-town jobs. I was staying in one of the older Holiday Inns, the concrete walkways just outside the rooms, the extruded aluminum window-and-door frames, the loud air conditioner/furnace units under the windows, the heavy and ugly curtains. Brown bedspreads, orange carpets. Pepto bismol pink bathrooms.
the third day on this job, I got back to the hotel, took my shower, and flopped on the bed, exhausted. I was aslee before my head hit the headboard, and that took me out for several additional hours.
Around- oh, it must have been three ayem, I woke with a full bladder.
My bedroom at the time was arranged so the door was to the left of the bed, as you are standing at the foot of the bed; I woke up and my natural inclination was to head in that direction, grab the door handle, and go in search of the crapper.
Only when the door clicked behind me did I realize I was outdoors. My keys, my wallet, my glasses, and every stitch of clothing I owned was now on the other side of a locked door.
Now, I’m not amused, but I am a: instantaneously wide awake, b: Chilly, and c: Still (and now, even more so) in need of a pee.
So i look around and find a floor drain next to the ice machine in the hallway between the sections of rooms.
Then as now, you have that moment of intense concentration to make the erection go away so you don’t piss all over the wall, and it took me more than usual in the circumstance. (The old trick for the pee-shy is to do math in your head, works every time, but by the time I pissed in the floor drain I had already revisited the length and breadth of the Binomial Theorem)
I flapped barefoot down the stairs, and had to hop the fence to get to the pool area where I took one of the cushions off a chaise lounge and wrapped it around me like a big hotdog bun, cold, wet vinyl. The desk clerk let me back into my room and all was well again.
She was very helpful that night, as well as going out of her way the rest of my stay to make sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed.
Not until I checked out did I notice there was a security camera pointed directly at that ice machine.
Ah well.
I have also awakened and not known where I was. But that normally only lasts long enough to open my eyes. Sometimes I awaken and not know what time of day it is (day or night). Recently I find myself not knowing the month, year, or even how old I am without calculating it. I kid myself that it is because I am saving brain space for really important memories that will be logged later.
Oddly enough, I sleep light in hostile places (back when I used to visit hostile places) and awaken fully alert. That is probably a good thing when loaded firearms are within easy reach.
shaking head… tears… Have to laugh silently because I’m on the phone.
There is a point where everything looks the same, for all purposes is the same. You could be anywhere, everywhere, and waking up sometimes you truly dunno where you are. For time out of mind there has been one surefire way to know for sure.
Which brings me to my late stepfather, road warrior and humorist.
Watson worked for Ford corporate for many years. He was the guy every auto dealer hates — the man from the home office come to audit the books.
It goes without saying that he had a very difficult job, made more so by the fact that he spent most of his nights in strange hotel rooms.
I should also tell you that my stepfather was a man who loved to laugh more than anything — perhaps because he got so little chance to laugh during the day himself.
For the last several years of his time on the road he got in the habit of taking one thing from his hotel room on the way out.
The phone book.
He would replace that phone book the next place he went with the phone book from the previous town. And he did that for YEARS.
I need say no more. :)
Jenny
Back in the bad old days I was wondrous thankful to wake up and know where I was. I have awakened and pissed in my in-laws’ fireplace, awakened at a friend’s and crawled around barking, naked, and awakened in a strange woman’s bedroom in an unknown part of Memphis, Tennessee, with her cowering on the sofa for some reason. Naked again. Lesson learned? If you’re gonna drink, don’t do it half-assed.
Try doing a 10-k run, around your alert bomber area, while on nuclear alert. Hot shower, then time for a nap. Hit the pillow, get awoken by the 100+-decibel klaxon horn for an alert start. Jump into the flight suit and boots, head for the door, and have to circle the subterranean building one and a half times underground trying to find the right tunnel which leads to the airplanes, because all the rest of the crews knew an exercise alert was coming and they were out the door at the first note of the horn.
Try ‘splaining THAT to the aircraft commander…yep, this shiite happens to second looeys fresh out of navigator school.