When you go on vacation during Christmas, you expect to spend time in the loving bosom of your family, not at a former crime scene.
We packed three people and seemingly tens of thousands of presents into the car headed to Texas to visit my wife’s family over the Christmas. Had this been a less buy time of year or we had less cargo, we might have stayed with her sister for a night or two. But given the body and present count, we checked into, what I’ll call, the Braymont Inn, a few blocks from my sister-in-law’s house.
The Braymont is a national chain with reasonable rates a continental breakfast. (I think the continent was Atlantis, everything tasted wet and salty.)
A 10-hour drive isn’t difficult, just boring. So when you arrive at your destination, you’re eager to get out and meet people and catch up on news and eat and laugh and party. These things we did. And then it was time for bed. Even a motel bed feels good at this point, regardless of how many “How filthy is your motel room?” exposés you’ve seen on the local TV news during Sweeps Week.
Morning, renewal, in-room coffee, lazy chat and looking forward to a hot shower and breakfast and … no, it can’t be … there is no hot water in the Braymont. Boiler broken. They’re looking into it. They’re sorry for the inconvenience. It’ll be fixed tomorrow.
This isn’t inconvenience, this is bordering on a crisis. My Christmas spirit is being sapped because I can’t rinse the 10-hour drive off in a torrent of hot, South Texas soft water. OK, we can handle this. Not killed, made stronger. A quick tepid rinse and then my wife made the discovery that will forever characterize this trip: the blood-spatter pattern.
She was reaching for something that had rolled under the bed and lifted up the sheet to see that the box spring fabric had an old blood stain. Not an “I cut my finger and a few drops of blood came out” spot. Not an “I was whittling a new moose call and the knife slipped and I need three stitches” stain. Not even an “I smacked my head against the wall stumbling around in the dark and head wounds bleed a lot and please go get the ice bucket” mess.
This was a basketball-sized, something-criminal-and-probably-a-felony-happened-here blood puddle. It had been cleaned many times to extract as much blood – or evidence – as possible, but there’s really no way to return the box spring to its pristine state after the boys form the crime lab have finished with it.
We were aghast. Not that something unfortunate had happened in this room earlier. This was Conroe, Texas, after all, misdemeanor assault capital of Montgomery County. But that Braymont management thought that their guests would be OK with sleeping on a mattress that could have starred in a “Law and Order” episode. This was revelation No. 1 in a two-revelation process that will keep us from ever staying in a Braymont Inn again.
We dressed as quickly as a possible to report this to the front desk, hoping they’d be as outraged as we were. The young man behind the desk turned out to be the son of the franchise owner, a young man in his late teens or early 20s, a young man who doesn’t exactly grasp the concept of customer service, a young man who would find the concept of “Do you want fries with that?” too intellectually rigorous.
We told him what we found, suggested he contact the authorities and find us another room ASAP. He said a room would be ready for us by the time we finished breakfast. Mmmm, Braymont breakfast: salty, undercooked scrambled eggs and the best Danish that Sam’s Club had to offer – last month. We got our new room keycard, packed our stuffed, transferred rooms and crossed our fingers.
The rest of the day passed with good fellowship, board games, too much good food, presents and my debut on Dance Dance Revolution. (For the record, I stink.) Back to the Braymont. The mattresses in the second room seemed to pass muster. Not on the comfort scale necessarily, but at least we didn’t have Detective Columbo hunting for crime-scene clues in our room.
Ahh, morning, renewal, in-room coffee, lazy chat and looking forward to a hot shower and breakfast and … no, it can’t be … there is no hot water in the Braymont, again. Boiler still broken. They’re still looking into it. They’re still sorry for the inconvenience. It’ll still be fixed tomorrow. These guys really know how to satisfy customers, who could become repeat customers or write reviews on hotel Web sites.
You know the drill: tepid shower, family fellowship, food in abundance, Christmas cheer.
That night was our last with the Braymont. It passed without incident. And in the morning, praise Jesus, there was hot water. Glorious hot water. We packed, checked out, silently wished the other guests well because we knew what they were in for. Ten hours home and we went straight to the computer to write the most scathing review of the Conroe, Texas Braymont Inn we could.
It’s been three years. Hopefully there is new management, a new attitude, or at least new sheets at the Braymont.
2 Comments
March 16, 2009 at 12:13 pm
After I read this, I saw a TV ad for a movie “Sunshine Cleaning.”
The very last scene in this trailer cracked me up, it reminded me of your story, where the gals are carrying a mattress…
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi729612313/
October 12, 2009 at 3:42 pm
That reminds me of an almost night at he Night’s Inn just outside St Louis. One look and we left cancelling our card before we departed. Felt lucky to get out of there without one of the many loiterers in the court yard trying to sell us some smack. Did I mention the oder that greeted us when we opened the door to the room?
Since then all my online bookings have been with Marriott.