You and your family wearily arrive at the Fairmont Hotel in Memphis, TN. You approach the front desk and are greeted by the witch from The Dark Crystal. You get your kids up to the room only to find that the key cards don’t work. Your wife goes back downstairs while your children moan and flop to the floor of the unpleasantly warm hallway. You stand there, drop your bags, lean on the wall. Long, unbearable minutes later, your wife returns with Aughra waddling behind her. The Muppet witch can’t get the cards to work either. She opens a different, smaller room and suggests you sleep there. Your kids pile in, claiming spots and scattering their stuff everywhere. Shoes fly, bags are tossed, beds are leapt upon. As you enter, your face is hit with a wave of heat, even though the AC is clearly running. No, no, this won’t do.
Before you can complain though, Aughra summons you back. She has managed to open the original door. But while knocking on your door, she has let the other one shut again. And while you all gather your things back up – (seriously, how did you make this much of a mess in thirty seconds??) – and file back into the hall, she struggles to reopen it. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten times she enters the card, pulls it out, enters it again. Really? That’s the trick? Just keep trying forever on a lock that is obviously broken?
Absurdly, the eleventh try works. She smiles as if there is anything to smile about, and ushers you into the room with a grand wave of her arm. You slump inside to find the same heat wave. This AC is on too, so what the Hell? A quick investigation reveals that a dehumidifier is also running, and is apparently powered by nuclear fission judging by the heat it radiates. You turn it off and crank the AC down to DEFCON Satan.
You survey the room. Somehow you expected there would be more beds. Or different beds. Or something, anything other than the arrangements you have. But you’re too tired to argue with your wife, who made the reservations. And that means you’re *really* tired, because arguing is one of your superpowers, together with complaining and eating bacon. And in the end it doesn’t really matter whether it’s totally your wife’s fault or mostly your wife’s fault. Because it is past everyone’s bedtime, and however it happened, you must now sleep on a king size bed with both of your boys. Boys who kick in their sleep. Boys who burrow their sweaty heads into your torso. Boys who sit straight up in the middle of the night and shout “Which cat?! Which cat?!” while still unconscious.
You get them all to bed, but you can’t sleep because it’s still too hot in this room. And your Paul Bunyan of a five-year-old keeps rolling onto you. And the bed feels like you’re sleeping on Grant’s Tomb. So you begin to peck out the start of this post on your phone.
And in the morning, you continue typing while your wife drives. And you’re going to detail the crime against humanity that was breakfast, and note that you just drove by a state park named after the founder of the Ku Klux Klan (are you fucking kidding me Tennessee?!?), and complain about any number of other things. But as you’re hitting your stride, you happen to check the news and HOLY SHIT GAY MARRIAGE IS A RIGHT!!! And everything else dissolves. And this is a great day. And you’re proud to be an American. And you’ll be picking your daughter up from camp today, and you can’t wait to tell her.