Toenail Inn

originally posted: 9/19/01

Brought to you by Mother Media. This is her term for a less-than-four-star motel. The kind that leaves you feeling skeevy. The kind that has a "don't drink the water" sign at the check-in desk because the water is so hard shampoo doesn't lather. The kind where you see the desk clerk in the same clothes for three days running. Where there's no tissue in the room and you run out of TP in two days. Where there's no art, not even cheap mass-produced art, on the uneven walls, no ice machine, no vending machine. Where there are no curtains on the windows and the blinds are installed on the OUTside. Where the main exit is a heavy door with a twist knob instead of a push-bar -- difficult to traverse with arms full of luggage and definitely not handicapped-accessible. Where the aroma that greets you once you struggle through is that of the stockyards a short distance away -- upwind.

Mother Media and Sister-san and I woke up in the Toenail Inn last Tuesday morning in time to see the day's events begin to unfold. I've never been so grateful in all my life to be in a skanky motel on the edge of nowhere with those two people in sight, safe, and numerous other relatives blocks away, safe. I think we'd all volunteer to spend the rest of our days at the Toenail Inn if it meant every family could say the same.