I once spent a night in one of those Weekly Stay hotels

I have nothing against the hotel itself, it is what it is, even if what it is is the worst room I've ever stayed in regardless of the fact that it was in a business district.

There were cigarette burns in the counter top of the little kitchen, the carpet was suspiciously greasy feeling, and the mattress seemed to be stuffed with the bones of roadkill the owner picked off of the street with his roadkill shovel. The guy didn't even use his good shovel! Believe it or not, none of that was the bad part. The bad part was yet another of those surrealistic experiences I seem to have when I'm away from home, actually, this may have been my first surrealistic travel experience.

My very long day had stretched into the night and I needed a place to stay. This hotel was very near to where I was working at the time, so I decided to crash there. When I approached the door to the front lobby, which was actually to the rear of the building, which is never a good thing, I found it was locked, which is also never a good thing since that meant whatever they were trying to keep out of the building was on the side of the door I was currently on. After knocking for several minutes, the attendant, who I can only assume lives there, came out from a tiny room behind the counter in a tank top and jeans, no shoes, looked at me suspiciously while I shouted nicely asked to be let in, and finally, after evaluating my potential as a threat, let me in.

I got to the room, ready for a restful night's sleep in anticipation of the crazy day I would have tomorrow. I showered, ironed my clothes, laying them gently over the kitchen counter in the absence of a clothes hangar, and lied down just in time to hear the occupants of the neighboring room (the walls were made of special sound transmitting paper) wake up to begin their "morning" routine. It was okay at first, I heard and smelled bacon and eggs, then they took a shower, and while putting on their shoes, they turned on the TV...

Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad Boys, Bad Boys.

 ...And left for work.

It was almost midnight, and I was doing lots of things:

I was lying on dead animal bones.
I was breathing stale air.
I was listening to and feeling the vibration of a COPS marathon.
I was not sleeping.

The front desk guy did not answer his phone. When I went to the desk he was not there and his bedroom appeared empty, so I gave up.

I did not sleep. I just lay there, exhausted, with sirens, gun fire, screaming victims of domestic abuse, more sirens, and a reggae rap theme song blaring through the wall...

And then I went to work.