Motel Etiquette: How not to be a dick when staying somewhere that is not your house.

When I was a small person, one thing my mum used to always say to my sister & I when we were caught being little bastards at someone else's house was 'would you do that in your own home?'. To which my reply would always be 'Yes I would. Except you would growl & when you growl I get scared'. And then I got taller than her & wasn't so scared anymore. That & the fact I could run like Forrest Gump on speed.

Apart from the fact I often challenged my mum's excellent child rearing skills, my sister & I were raised with respect for other people & other people's property.

This meant when we went away on holidays & stayed in motels, apart from helping my dad turn the couch upside down & sift it for lost change (Holla Papa! The apple doth not fall far from the tree. I still do this), we never abused the places we stayed in. Because it wasn't our place to abuse.

As an adult, I have carried this rule on & when I am travelling I am always respectful of any property of which does not belong to me. Sadly, many others do not abide by this same rule. In fact, when staying in accommodation, many people throw all rules & manners out the door.

For those that aren't already aware, my husband & I live at a motel. We have been living there for a year & a half now & we love it hard. My husband works at the motel during the day & we are also responsible for the place after reception closes. Which means one of us always has to be on the premises by 8pm every. single. night.

While this commitment does affect our social life together, it's no great burden because we both have Nana tendency's & often display extreme anti social behaviour. Why go outside when you don't have to right? Plus it's just a shit hot place to live. My back porch looks out over the marina. I get to smell the ocean every morning. Get that up ya.

Because of our current living status, we get to experience on a day to day basis, the perils of bad manners displayed by others who choose to abuse the luxury of staying away from home.

It shits me. It shits me so hard in fact that Blake has to lock me in the house sometimes to stop me from starting a hate riot in the courtyard.

So as per usual, I have taken it upon myself to educate that select group of  disrespectful wanks on how one must behave when staying somewhere that is not their house.

Shitting in the shower is not ok. Ever.
If it weren't so offensive, I would wear it on a t-shirt. Hell, y'all know by now that I would probably wear it on a t-shirt anyway. Do you know why? Because people actually shit in the shower!! I am so not lying. More than one time now, the cleaners at the motel have had to deal with a non-accidental misdirected fecal.

Now I understand first hand that accidents happen *cough cough. Sometimes, we have no power over our angry bowels & one can be left clenching cheeks completely & utterly in vain. In my 32 years on this earth, & with my troubled digestion problem, this has never happened to me in the shower.

I understand that in some countries, taking a dump in the shower may be considered a normal practice. This is not a normal practice in NZ. We do not do poos in the shower.

In the late 1600's, a containment vesicle was invented to house the excrement & urine of a human being. This vesicle is called a toilet. The Shitter. The Shit House. The Throne. ecetera. This is what we are meant to use to rid our body of excess waste.

The only time I would accept this sort of a behaviour is if you were a baby. Babies have no control over when & where they code brown. It's not their fault. Babies don't go out on their own & stay in motels. Unless they have super powers. And for the record I have yet to meet a baby with super powers.

So next time you find yourself with the urge to crack one out, get the hell outta the shower & drop it in the toilet like a normal person. Do not EVER let it go in the shower then attempt to squash it down the plug with your foot. First of all ewwwww you filthy filthy bastard. And secondly, some nice person, a person who is just trying to survive in this harsh world, has to clean up your rancid bowel contents.

I would write you a letter asking you to please refrain from shitting in the shower if you choose to visit our premises again in the future. If I was allowed to. And if I had a voice of reason, which I don't, the more likely scenario would be you getting into your car to go to work one morning & discovering that someone had taken a nasty dump on your passenger seat.

A nasty present for a nasty person.

You do know that we have all your personal details in the database & I could find out where you live right?

All Night Dance Parties
I'm always down for a good party. Actually that's a lie. I hate parties. And I'm always the first to sneak away when the host is in the bathroom. But not before I motorboat the shit out of the party food. Man I love me some party snacks.

Over the last year & a half, I have had to break up a few motel rooms parties. Every so often, we have the pleasure of housing young fishermen/women. I understand that life on the sea is tough & stressful, & when on land you are overcome with urges to drink until you're half dead.

What happens is this select group text all their friends & invite them over to their motel room for a good old shindig.

We don't mind guests inviting guests over. But when these guests & their guests start yelling & screaming & basically being disruptive little assholes, stopping me & other paying guests from enjoying a good nights rest, that is where I draw the line. Game on muthafuckas.

I am lucky to be blessed with a rather large pair of invisible ball sacs. Not only do these assertive scrotum aid me in hushing disruptive motel guests but they also help me vent my rage & lack of tolerance for all that annoys me in life. There is a lot that annoys me. Like musicals, taxi driver pee on the floor of the work bathroom, thigh chafe, bees, people with rancid dirty neck folds......to name but a few.

Heading off the topic here for a moment, I went to the movies last weekend & saw Rock of Ages. What possessed me, I can not say, but 3 seconds in to the first scene, I realised it was indeed a musical movie. Fuck my life.

You know when you witness something so cheesy, the level of inner discomfort is so extreme that you proceed to purge small piles of vomit into your own hand. That is how I felt whilst watching this movie. It was so shit.

Blake looked at me with hateful fail eyes, mouthing 'why' at me every time someone spontaneously broke into song. I talked him into seeing this movie. Therefore the fault lay solely with me.

We slunk down real low in our seats, praying for the visual torture to end.

And when it was all over, just to reassure ourselves that not all was lost on our rainy Saturday afternoon, we tag team throat punched some hobos.

To really driver home just how shithouse I found this movie, I went on the radio this morning to tell the nation what I thought about it.

I will be waiting for the defamation of character law suit with baited breath Tom. You're welcome.

Don't do it. You have been warned.

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Smoking will harm you. But not as much as my hate dagger in your ribs when you smoke inside a motel room after politely being requested not to.
I've had an on/off relationship with cigarettes since I was 15 years old. I hate that I love to smoke, & to date it is the one thing that I just can't shake for good.

When I travel for work, I often stay in motels. If there is a sign anywhere in the motel room that says 'please do not smoke', I don't smoke. Easy.

Some people proactively choose to ignore it. And proceed to get aggressive/offended when charged extra to cover the arduous task of removing cigarette stench from the motel unit.

This really grates my tits.

Please note: If you throw your cigarette butts over the balcony like goddamn Mardigras confetti, I will reign down on you with the intensity of a thousand badly shod wild equine.

Hiding Drugs in furniture that isn't yours is also not ok also.
We have never actually had this happen. If I was in the business of hiding drugs, I would totally do it in the motel. However, as I mentioned previously, my voice of reason is non existent, so I wouldn't really take anything I tell you to do as an actual instruction.

For a couple of months we did have a pot-like stench coming from one of our rooms after a west coast couple had spent the night. Now I have a nose on me like a hound dog, but even my super sense of smell could not sniff out the offending narcotics. That's because there were none. But it was so much fun to pretend there was.

I thrive in made-up-in-my-head dangerous situations.

It turned out there was a blockage of leaves in the pipes in the wall behind the bed. So the owners got it fixed.

I still prefer the drug story though.

Please note: I do not do drugs of any shape or form. Nor do I condone planting a brick of hash in the underside compartment of a motel chair.

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Get your freak on. With the curtains closed.
In 2010, when Blake & I were on a family holiday on the Gold Coast, he spied a couple in the opposite hotel banging the living daylights out of each other, with the curtains wide open.

Now I'm all for holiday porn.  My horn meter has been known to raise quite significantly while away from the stresses of my every day life. The difference between me & the Gold Coast Humpers is that I like to make relations with my husband, without other people watching.

While I'm definitely no prude, I don't find it particularly endearing when I have to pick up a used joey off the floor beside the bed, or remove sheets that have a strangers man seed all over them. If you put your shit in the bin, I don't have to see it. Good rule!

By all means, ride whoever you want, as many times as you like, but for the love of god don't leave your sexual byproducts on display for my viewing pleasure. I don't want to see it. It makes me gag. And then I spew all over the carpet. Then we have a whole other grotty mess to clean up.

It's a vicious dirty cycle.

Any memorable motel adventures you care to share?

Back in my rock star days, many years ago, we used to travel the top of the south playing in various venues, & staying in random motels. One time, I went out partying with the natives. I danced so hard that I danced my room key right outta my pocket. I slept on the floor outside, but not before administering many swift fuck kicks to the front door. My band mate didn't hear me. He was in a Jack Daniels coma. When the sun rose, I was found asleep on the front porch, & there was a large whole in the motel unit door.

I was such a bad ass.

Peace, love, & happy travels