My Shower Runneth Over

Or, How We Got Banned From the Hampton Inn

by Siri Yardumian-Grubb

The Brannon brothers threw a mean after-party.  We packed fifteen, sometimes twenty, people into an undersized, overpriced hotel room.  The parties were sloppy and bawdy, and, invariably, somebody got drunk to the point of puking.  We had managed to elude hotel management for many such weekends, despite obvious and sometimes very embarrassing occasions when someone would go looking for the ice machine and get lost on the way back. 

This particular night – the last of the hotel parties – the imprudent desk clerk had given us a non-smoking room.  Aside from all of the regular smokers who were too drunk to find their way outside, we had some specialized smokers who required a particular measure of discretion.  After disabling the smoke detector, we carried on as usual, until someone pointed out that the room was going to smell decidedly of smoke if we continued.  So we relegated all smokers to the bathroom.  Of course, the bathroom didn’t have a fan, but someone suggested we turn on the hot water.  I guess steam was supposed to make the smoke disappear. 

With all of us crammed into the bathroom, intrinsically stupid and particularly cognitively impaired, it wasn’t long before somebody suggested a sauna.  We turned on the hot water in the shower, stuffed a towel under the door, and all began shedding layers of clothing.

I find, when the balance of the sexes runs heavy on girls in a hotel bathroom sauna, the few boys make sure everyone gets doused with a good measure of water.  Those girls who were reluctant to voluntarily step into the shower got blasted by the swivel showerhead.  Inevitably, the bathroom flooded.  There was nothing we could do about the saturated carpet outside the bathroom door.  We passed out soaking wet and woke up just in time for check out.

The Brannon brothers received a very cold but polite letter from hotel management shortly thereafter regretfully informing them that they and their guests were no longer welcome at the Hampton Inn.  They cited the waterlogged carpet and the illicit number of occupants.  No mention was made of the smell of smoke, though.