But He Spent The Night At A Holiday Inn Express

Here's a little story I forgot to share, concerning the last night of the Great H-cation of 2011.

Farmer H and the boys were pushing themselves to get back to the Mansion a day early. I don't know why. Maybe because Spur of the Moment H never does anything on schedule, even a schedule of his own making. He did leave at 9:00 a.m. the first day instead of 2:00 p.m. as he'd informed me.

So that last day, they would have arrived back at the Mansion around 1:00 a.m. I watched the 6:00 news. I saw the radar. I called the Traveling Secretary to Farmer H, aka the #1 son, and told him that they needed to stop for the night. They were going to be driving through severe thunderstorm warnings in the dark. No need for that. #1 relayed the message. Farmer H declared that he was not even tired. But because #1 kept saying, "I told you so," and if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, Farmer H stopped somewhere near the Kansas/Missouri border at a Holiday Inn Express. The last I heard, he was getting in the hot tub.

The next morning, Farmer H called from the road. He was hopping mad. Here's how he related it to me:

#1 told me to watch it in the shower. He said it was slick, and there were no non-slip bars on the tub. I was in the shower, and started to slip, but there was nothing to grab. No grab bar on the wall. I fell over the edge of the tub, hitting my leg, and then I whacked my elbow on the toilet. I was mad. I went down to the front desk and raised h*ll. I showed the guy my arm. He didn't seem to care. He said, "I can give you the room for free." I told him that I didn't come down there to get the room for free. That he needed to do something about that room before somebody got seriously hurt. And I also told him the air conditioning didn't work all night. After I'd calmed down, and as we were leaving, I made him sign a paper saying that I had told him about getting hurt. Because you never know how it could affect me later.

So...now there's probably a red flag on my credit card number every time we try to get a room at a Holiday Inn. They're lucky that Farmer H is not a litigious type. I told #1 to keep an eye on him in case he lost consciousness while driving, even though Thick-Noggined H said that he didn't hit his head. When he got home around 2:00 p.m. on Friday, the outside of his elbow had a knot bigger than a double-yolked Grade A Extra Large egg. He said it still hurts today.

On Monday, Farmer H emailed the corporate headquarters, but the email would not go through. So he called them. He said the representative assured him that they would sent somebody to the site for an inspection, because if one room was like that, there are probably more. She said they were also contacting the owner, and that they would let Squeaky Wheel H know the outcome of their investigation.

We'll see what develops.