Inhospitable Hospitality
Inhospitable hospitality is the new normal for road-weary travelers. Check in, stuff your ear canals with toilet paper, and sleep the sleep of the just.
By John G. Stamos
Regular readers of my material in The Renaissance Garden Guy may remember my last offering here that recounted the car ride I took with our dog Holly to visit my wife’s home (and my own future one) in Bridge Lake, British Columbia, Canada. It was a hair-raising ordeal because the route I selected – it was the fastest choice – took me through some seriously terrifying mountain passes. The white-knuckle trip was well worth taking because the actual visit with my wife Ann and her mom and dad was wonderful. I got to spend some excellent quality time with Ann, really chatted it up with her folks, had a ton of laughs, ate a bunch of awesome food, and was sorry as hell to have to eventually pack it up and head back to Michiana Shores. But pack it up and head back we did, Holly and I. And it’s this 6-day trans-continental drive and its five nocturnal punctuations, spent at five different hotels, that serve as the inspiration for this reminiscence. The drive itself was at times a bitch, but this lowdown deals with what went down after sundown when normal human activity is supposed to shut down.
Each of the five hotels where Holly and I crashed during our return trip to Michiana Shores was very well-run and expertly managed. I have no beef whatsoever with any of these stand-up places or their respective hardworking employees. On the contrary, I’d endorse them heartily to anyone looking for a rec or two or five. Despite the awesomeness of these places, my nights spent at each of them started out neither uneventfully nor silently. But the staff at each place made remarkable saves, and their responsiveness and diligence ensured that all of my nights on the road ultimately did pass uneventfully and silently. So, it’s not the hospitality industry, the individual hotels, or the wonderful people employed there who are the precipitators of this teacup’s tempest. Nope, the target of this rant is modern society’s particular subset of offscourings that evidently feels that the need for peace and quiet on the road, by anyone other than themselves, is unwarranted. Simply put, the hotels aren’t the bad guys here. Their inconsiderate, loudmouthed, noisy, a-hole guests are.
Jasper, Alberta: “F— YOU, BITCH!!!”
I rolled into Jasper, Alberta long after dark on the first day of the trip back to Indiana. The day of driving started out with what can only be described as a terrifying, one-hour-plus downhill slide eastward on British Columbia’s treacherous Highway 24, in abysmal snowy-and-frozen-slick-road conditions. From there, it was all figuratively and literally uphill, because the next six hours of slipping and sliding took place on a couple of two-lane mountain passes through the Canadian Rockies. My day of driving did in fact end in Jasper, which proved to be a really nice place to wrap things up. Lovely town, wonderful attractions, substantial amenities, and a wide selection of overnight accommodations. The little spot I settled on was perfect. Not only because it had a dog-friendly room available, but because it was very clean and well-kept, and the front desk staff were really nice. And the place, in general, was quiet as a tomb – a perfect place to decompress after a freakishly dangerous, stressful drive.
Or so I thought.
Holly and I were set up in our room by about 8:30 PM, and by nine we were both into full-on chill mode heading into full-on sleep mode, when we heard someone moving their stuff into the room next to ours. For the next half-hour, this individual (I found out later it was only one young guy) banged and slammed what sounded like a Greyhound Bus full of his belongings into the room. Once the transference was complete, and everything that had been in his vehicle was now in the room, things seemed to quiet down. The last time I looked at the bedside clock before drifting off it was reading 10 PM.
At 10:30 PM, I was awakened from what was turning into a deep sleep session by the sound of a male voice bellowing from the other side of the wall behind my bed’s headboard. The guy was evidently embroiled in a phone conversation, the words of which I couldn’t at first make out. But my senses sharpened and the sonofabitch got louder and louder, and I started hearing exactly what he was shouting.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about? … No fuckin’ way!!! … FUCK YOU, BITCH!!!”
It went on like this for about another 15 minutes (I thought it would die down), and then it started getting louder. That was when one phone call to the hotel’s front desk took care of the problem. I explained the sitch to the desk clerk, and, in less than a minute, there was a sharp knocking on my inconsiderate neighbor’s door, a short, heated conversation, and then radio silence. The rest of Night One passed without incident.
Over and out, ass wipe.
Lloydminster, Alberta: I know it’s only rock ‘n’ roll…
Stupidly, I made no room reservations for the evening of my second day of driving (a Friday), so when I rolled into Lloydminster, Alberta, at approximately 6:30 PM, it was dark and there were (at first) no rooms at any inns. My lack of preparedness, and the fact that the town was hosting an enormous, weekend-long, Junior Hockey League tournament, were biting me in the ass. The outdoor temperature was -11° Fahrenheit and dropping, and every single place I called had no rooms available at all, let alone any dog-friendly rooms. I was starting to lose it. After coordinating with Ann (safe and warm in Bridge Lake), a systematic phone campaign to find a dog-friendly room in this town packed with visiting hockey players and fans ensued, and, incredibly, we each simultaneously found one available, dog-friendly room at two different respective hotels.
Two available rooms, each one at a separate hotel. It was a coin flip. I went with the one I found, and if I hadn’t, and instead gone with Ann’s find, I probably would’ve never had to deal with what happened after check-in at my pick.
As in the case with all the hotels in this story, my Lloydminster choice was a very nice little place with an awesome, extremely eager-to-please staff. It was, ironically, the eagerness (and helpfulness and compassion) of this awesome hotel staff that led to the eardrum-splitting experience that was waiting for me in my nicely-appointed, spotless room.
By the time Holly and I unloaded the car and settled into our room, it was approximately 8:30 PM. Just in time for the first number in The Tumbling Boulders’ opening set. “North America’s Premier Rolling Stones Tribute Band” was live, and kicking off their two-night gig in my chosen hotel’s bar. The entrance to which, incidentally, was positioned approximately 64 inches from our room’s windows, just across a narrow outdoor walkway.
What happened was this: Starting shortly after The Boulders’ first set was underway, and recurring at approximately 20-minute intervals, intense and sustained bursts of the band’s music (I was pretty sure the first number I heard was “Beast of Burden” – but the background accordion riff made certain identification difficult) and the laughing, shouting, and screeching voices of what I guessed to be four adults – two women and two men – could be clearly heard directly outside our room’s windows. Alternating with this nearly-continual ruckus was approximately 20 minutes of silence.
The reason it happened was this: “We wanted to make sure we could give you and your dog a room tonight, so we hurried up and got the one room ready for you that we never make available to guests – because it’s the one that’s right outside the bar,” the sincerely apologetic front desk guy told me after I called him to my room to check out the noise for himself. “What’s happening is that there are two couples who keep going outside to smoke and bullshit with each other, and they’re holding the door to the bar wide open to keep warm while they smoke. That’s why we’re hearing all the music. I’ll try to put a stop to it.” He did try, but failed. The noise from subsequent 20-minute bursts of accordion-augmented Stones’ covers (when you’re listening to lyrics about someone who makes a dead man come with the driving polka vibe of an accordion backing it all up, it’s a given that you won’t be going gently into that good night) and the laughing-shouting-smoking co-ed micro-parties right outside my windows continued.
It got fixed like this: The poor, harassed front desk clerk came back to my room with the hotel’s head of security, who also happened to be one hell of a good guy. The HOS assured me he’d talk to the bar’s doormen, who happened to be his direct reports, and put a stop to the alternating door-opening and blabbing bullshit of the inconsiderate drinking-smoking-partying quartet, which in turn would entirely mute the polka-based Stones’ jams as interpreted by North America’s Premier Rolling Stones Tribute Band. He kept his word, because, within 10 minutes of his visit to our room, all was silent, and Holly and I passed the rest of the evening in peace.
Evidently, the hotel’s security chief had no trouble getting the four loudmouths under his thumb.
Weyburn, Saskatchewan: Double dribble.
Weyburn is a lovely little town a little more than an hour north of the Saskatchewan-North Dakota border, and it was the site of my overnight accommodations after my third full day of driving. And those accommodations (reserved the previous evening) were excellent. The hotel was architecturally attractive, with a beautiful spacious lobby and an intelligent overall layout. And the staff were remarkable. The young lady who got Holly and me checked in was incredibly helpful and very friendly. In fact, I couldn’t find anything about this facility, nor its operation, that caused me to doubt that I’d end up with a solid eight of uninterrupted Zs.
Until we got to our floor.
Where I was greeted by the sights and sounds of somebody’s little 10-year-old darling bouncing a basketball off the floor and walls of the hallway right outside our room. In seconds, the door to the room immediately across the hall from ours (I hadn’t even gotten inside the door of our own digs) opened, and two more little crumpet-snatchers spilled out into the hall to join the first future NBA all-star. This triumvirate tore off down the hall in a full-court press, bouncing and passing that Spalding as they ran.
Who were their parents (their coaching style left a lot to be desired), and what the hell were they thinking?
I got Holly, our luggage, and myself into our room, and immediately headed for the elevator to give the friendly, attentive front desk clerk a heads-up on the situation. But she beat me to the punch. When the ‘vator’s doors opened, she was there, already on the scene. “I heard them from downstairs, and about twenty other guests called me to complain. Do you know what room they came out of?” I showed her, and she thanked me and promised to take care of the problem, which she evidently did, because the action on the court never resumed.
Shooting guard, small forward, and center ejected. Technical foul on the coaching staff.
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Jamestown, North Dakota: Baby, it’s the Guitar Man.
Another night, another hotel. This time, in Jamestown, ND. Both the town and my accommodations were fine – Jamestown is a nice place, and the room I reserved the night before was neat, clean, and quiet. The neat and clean part was status quo throughout my stay, but the quiet part, at least initially, not so much. My Jamestown evening’s rocky start coincided with the arrival – to the room immediately next to mine – of the Guitar Man.
After Holly and I got our stuff loaded into our room, and I got Holly her dinner, I hooked her up to her leash and walked out into the hallway. Here, we saw for the first time, the gentleman who was to be our neighbor for the evening. Older guy. White hair, bald on top but long on the sides. Goatee. 60-ish. Aging hipster-look about him. He was hauling a bunch of stuff into his room when Holly and I passed him in the hallway.
I didn’t know it yet, but this was the Guitar Man.
That realization came after I brought Holly back inside and through the hotel’s lobby after her walk. My aging hipster neighbor was there, whining to the front desk clerk about the temperature in his room. Strapped to his back was a guitar case. No fucking way.
Yes fucking way.
At approximately 10 PM, about one half-hour after Holly and I got back to our room, the guitar-pickin’ started. Loudly and clearly. The Guitar Man was practicing his craft. At the expense of my sleep. I wanted to pound on this idiot’s door, then, once he’d opened it, shove his guitar up his ass and then choke the living shit out of him. This guy was a 60-year-old man, not some immature kid who didn’t know any better. Goddamn, was I pissed.
I ultimately did the right thing and called the super-polite and gracious front desk clerk and explained my predicament. About 32 seconds later, I heard him rapping – insistently – on the door of the Guitar Man, who was in mid-jam and evidently lost in his music (it took him a few beats to open his door). After a short balling out by the front desk clerk, the Guitar Man was stifled, and the music died.
I can’t remember if he cried.
Eau Claire, Wisconsin: Mexican standoff.
Holly and I spent our last night on the road at a wonderful little dog-friendly hotel in the pretty, snow-covered town of Eau Claire, WI. When I made our room reservations at this charming facility the night before, I was assured by the friendly front desk clerk that my evening there would pass quietly and uneventfully. This would, in part, be due to our room being situated at the very end of the hotel’s most quiet wing (at the time I called to make the reservation, all the other rooms in the wing were empty, and none had been reserved). When we got to the hotel (at about 7 PM) and were shown to our room, the situation was exactly as the evening prior’s front desk clerk had described. We had one of the two rooms at the very end of the empty wing, which meant that two walls of our room faced the outside. In the wing’s hallway, immediately beyond our room’s door, was a handy exterior door (that made vehicle loading/unloading, and taking Holly out for her walk, convenient). Our room, the hallway beyond its door, and the entire wing itself remained silent until about 9:30 PM, when two cars pulled up outside the wing’s exterior door and hemorrhaged what I counted to be eight guys out their opened doors. For the next hour, the hotel’s exterior door, and the door to the room immediately across the hall from Holly’s and my room, continually, repeatedly, and alternately opened and slammed shut. Thunderously. And accompanying this incessant door-banging were the shouts and laughter – all in what I guessed was Spanish – of the eight young and very drunk Mexican guys staying in that room across the hall. And when they weren’t banging in and out their room door and the exterior door, they were congregating, en masse, in the hallway right outside our room’s door. I knew they were drunk because the smell of the booze they were swilling hung in the air like smog. I knew they were Mexican because they were taking turns waving two giant Mexican flags around in the hallway. The fact that none of them spoke English was confirmed at the time I addressed them as a group and asked them to knock off the noise. At this point, every single one of them looked confused but collegial, and the guy closest to the door smiled, then offered me a can of Dos Equis. Despite this gesture of cross-cultural brotherhood, I knew the language barrier was going to be a stumbling block to effective diplomacy.
But not for the front desk clerk. When I called him to explain the issue, he told me that 1) He, in fact, spoke Spanish, 2) The fiesta-throwers across the hall had lied about the number of people who’d be staying in the room when they checked in (they’d originally told him “dos”), 3) Other guests were also starting to complain, and 4) He was going to evict them from the hotel and bar them from future visits. He evidently made good on all four points, because within approximately 20 minutes of my call, this again-silent, very nice little hotel bid a final “Adios, amigos” to the former occupants of the room across the hall.
Diplomatic immunity revoked.
There are always going to be hotel guests who are buttholes, and now, I think I know most of them.
Five for five. Holy shit.
I’ve stayed in hotels hundreds of times throughout my life and I’ve never experienced anything like the string of disorderly conduct – perpetrated at five different hotels by five separate parties on five consecutive nights – I was subjected to during my drive from Bridge Lake to Michiana Shores. It’s now clear to me that the small percentage of North American hotel guests who are inconsiderate buttholes – and I think I probably know most of them now – were either dropped on their heads as infants, or were raised by howler monkeys. Nothing else that I can think of explains their idiotic disregard for their fellow travelers. In terms of hotel encounters with morons like this, there’s no doubt that I was five for five. But I was also five for five when it came to ultimately scoring a solid night of sleep every night on the road because the hardworking staff at each place I stayed did an admirable and effective job of reining in the idiocy and restoring the peace.
For the record, this story is true, with only a name change or timeline adjustment or two thrown in for artistic license, and to protect both the innocent and the guilty. To all those unnamed hotel staff members who silenced the knuckleheads and ultimately helped me get the sleep I paid for, you are all unsung heroes, and I thank you most kindly. And to all the knuckleheads who tried, but failed (thanks to the efforts of those very unsung hospitality industry heroes) to wreck the overnight stays of their fellow travelers, I suggest you roll out the barrel in your own goddamn hometown, and I hope the cops bust you for it. You’ll get no sympathy from me, you devils.
Cheers, and Happy Gardening!
“Inhospitable Hospitality” ©2025. John G. Stamos and The Renaissance Garden Guy
John Stamos is a writer and is co-publisher of The Renaissance Garden Guy. His work has appeared in a number of publications including, most recently, A Man for Some Seasons, Splice Today, and, of course, The Renaissance Garden Guy. He is married to his multitalented wife and sweetheart, Ann Simpson-Stamos.
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Oh John, that has to be some sort of travelling record! Just what I needed, a little laugh to start my day. I’m impressed with how the staff handled things for you, I don’t know if that would happen here! Hope Holly has adjusted to her regular sleeping patterns! Happy Christmas 🙂
Thank you so much for reading it, Gaby, and thank you for your kind thoughts and wishes. I really do appreciate that. And I do agree with you wholeheartedly. The staff at each facility did a remarkable job of reining in the stupidity. In all of my years of hotel stays, I’ve never encountered anything even remotely like that horrible string of events. It was insane. In any case, Gaby, thank you once again. And, of course, I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a healthy and Happy New Year. All the best!
Oh, John – you had me laughing all the way through this. In the past, I have also encountered derriere-holes like these on my travels. But nothing to the degree that you encountered.
{{{{{{{{{{{gentle hugs}}}}}}}}}}} – you are a butt-hole survivor!!!!!!
One year in Reno – in the 1970’s – two friends and I were at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Hotel. We were there because my one friend loved country music and Roy Clark and Buck Owens. What we didn’t know was that all the rooms in the hotel were wrapped around the stage. We sat through the first two shows – yes, my friend loved him so much – and then we all retired to our rooms where, for the next FIVE HOURS, we had to listen to the next two shows – until almost 3 am. ——— So I understand all too well about Mr. Guitar Man and the noise he was making.
Be Well. Merry Christmas – Happy New Year – for you and the spectacular Holly. I hope you will be going back to Canada soon.
Wow, Annie, what a story! Nothing like a little unexpected late night music-blasting to make a hotel stay memorable. Thank you for the kind wishes. And yes, we’ll be back again in Canada with Ann before too long. Ann, Holly, and I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and Happy New Year! Thanks again, Annie.
Another wild adventure by you and the intrepid Holly. Glad you made it back safe and sound!
Thanks for giving it a read, Lisa. Holly is definitely a trooper. Honestly, I wanted to slap some of these people. Thanks again, Lisa!
I have had many similar experiences in hotels/motels. Paper thin walls and conversations outside the room can be extremely annoying. Everyone needs to be considerate. Glad you returned safely to Michiana Shores.
People can be such inconsiderate idiots. Thanks for reading the piece, Rick, and for your kind words.