I'm buying stock in Raid

People often ask me where I get my ideas. I guess I'm the type of person that drama seems to find. Wednesday I left for Commerce, Texas. I flew into Dallas and first I visited with a former student who is doing an internship with American Airlines. I got an insider tour of the pilot and flight attendant training areas, including getting to step inside a flight simulator and see the pool where attendants learn water evacuations. I was thrilled. All this stuff is great background and may be useful in a book someday.

From there I took Chris and his boss to lunch, and then Chris drove me to Commerce, where things went downhill. The Association for Texas Photography Instructors (ATPI) has been using the University Inn successfully for lodging for years, but since last summer the place has undergone a few changes, and not necessarily for the better. New management took over approximately two weeks ago and they have quite a few challenges. The mattresses outside and the trash by the dumpsters should have been a clue that something was amiss. But no, we conference attendees naively believed it would be fine like in previous years. I even reassured Chris, who left shaking his head.

Chris had it right. I wasn’t the only room where the beds were made (but with unclean sheets), the showers came with used soap and shampoos (although new stuff was on the counters) and the roaches came out at night (or in the case of one ATPI attendee, out of her folded towels the next morning). One instructor had a single room, but he didn’t sleep alone as two roaches woke him up when they crawled on his arm to check him out. Even though I’d gotten a new room and new pillows after complaining about the state of my room (and the roach on my door frame), I didn’t sleep well as I had the light on all night.

Needless to say over ten of us checked out the next day, but not without the manager first refusing to refund our unused stay (we were supposed to be there for three nights) until the ATPI director stepped in. The conference itself is held on the Texas A & M Commerce campus and they were wonderful hosts. As for the conference content and instructors, I have never attended a conference where I learned so much and had such a great time doing so. I highly recommend this conference, which will probably be moving hotels next year.

The Holiday Inn itself was nirvana compared to the other hotel; my room spacious and wonderful. The experience became the subject of my convergence journalism project and I even made a video about how great the place was. I remained paranoid, though, and never did unpack my suitcase. I kept it zipped unless I needed something. That was probably a good thing, since Saturday morning, one of those large tree roaches decided to visit and began crawling on the wall opposite my bed. Figuring my room fee covered bug disposal, I called the front desk. Housekeeping came and I’ve never seen anyone pounce so fast--those critters can really move but she was quicker. However, the irony rankled. Could it not have picked someone else’s room, especially after I’d made such a great video on how this hotel was bug free? I guess I wasn’t quite a liar, since in my video I’d stated that at the Holiday Inn at least the bugs die. Of course, housekeeping had to help. I'm sure she thought me quite the sissy, but I hate bug guts and had enough of them Wednesday.

Over breakfast, the Texans began educating me on the different types of roaches (and which ones are good and bad) and stressed you can’t ever totally get rid of them. While I love all these people dearly, I was never quite so happy to see Missouri and my own bed. I’m still quite creeped out, and planning on packing Raid for next Friday night’s hotel stay in Kirksville when I go pick up my daughter. I got the idea from one of the conference attendees who bought a can of Raid at Walmart and sprayed the perimeter of the room and around her entire bed. After a night from hell in the first hotel, she wasn’t taking chances.

So how does this relate to writing? After hearing bug stories since Wednesday (and everyone had them in abundance to share), I’m thinking that a hot sexy exterminator would make an excellent hero. I mean, the Orkin man of the TV commercials doesn’t quite do it for me, but I could give this guy six-pack abs and have him save the day (or maybe the heroine’s century-old house). I’m not sure. I can see the other hotel from hell factoring in somehow as well. While I never quite thought bugs would be characters in a book, after this past week, I’m starting to visualize the possibilities. Maybe that would help exorcise the twitches I’m still having. Or at least justify the paranoia.

Michele