Hotel Lives

Not so very long ago, it was a common thing for people to live in hotels. I've always found the idea romantic, probably because I watch too many black and white movies. There's the friendly bellboy who greets everyone by name, the well-stocked liquor cabinets and linen-draped room-service carts, the mailboxes for long-term guests, the elevator operator who knows everyone's floor, the dapper gentleman on some urgent mission who strolls up to the front desk and asks, "Any messages for me, Sam?" It all seems such a long way from our current world of interchangeable chain motels with names like Motel 6 and Super 8 and Blue 22 (I made that last one up), of "continental breakfasts" comprised of a box of cold, greasy donuts and orange juice in little plastic cups sealed with tinfoil, of televisions that can be used either for express checkout or downloading adult entertainment, in both cases making what was once a transaction between human beings into a solitary endeavor.

The people who used to live in hotels were usually bachelors, young couples, or old folks. I just read a Peter Taylor story about newlyweds who are forced to spend the first night of their honeymoon in the hotel in which the groom used to live, a circumstance that was most embarrassing for the young bride, since everyone was bound to know what they were up to. These days, of course, bachelors live with roommates or parents or rent their own apartments, and young brides don't get embarrassed about much of anything at all. The old folks who used to live in hotels now live in Assisted Living Communities, which is actually very much like living in a hotel, only with more bingo. As for the rest of us, living in a hotel simply isn't a viable option. Who has that kind of money? And where would we put all our stuff?

Nevertheless, the past decade has seen an explosion in the number of so-called extended-stay hotels that charge a reasonably affordable weekly rate for guests who commit to stay long-term. I've yet to figure out who stays at these places, but my hunch is that it's primarily business travelers - a company may rent a couple of rooms in a residence hotel and rotate people through, or individual businesspeople may live in a room for an extended period while they take care of business. This, essentially, is what my grandfather did back in the 1970s when he started traveling from Oklahoma City up to Bartlesville, OK, to work on a case for the oil company based there (he was a lawyer for the company), until it became clear that the case would take years and he and my grandmother might as well just move to Bartlesville.

The other people who stay in extended-stay hotels are probably people who can more easily pay a weekly rate than a monthly one - poor people, intermittently employed people, migrant workers, people forced out of their own homes due to flooding or tornadoes or whatever. These people are likely to live in different hotels than the business travelers. Often it'll be one of those run-down "motor inns" from the 1960s that you and I drive by and shake our heads wondering how such places stay in business. Or it may be one of Motel 6's new line of extended-stay motels (ingeniously named Studio 6) that go for about $140 a week. These people will often sleep several to a room, and they will often not get much in the way of free high-speed internet. It goes without saying, I suppose, that there's not much romance in these arrangements, either for the wealthy or the poor, although you're more likely to find romance in a Four Seasons than in a Studio 6.

For the last four days, I've been somewhere between those extremes, in a Hilton Suites in Brentwood, TN, just a few miles south of Nashville. The apartment Kate and I are moving into isn't quite done yet, a fact that is less surprising now than it would have been a month ago, before I knew our new landlord better. We've been assured it'll be inhabitable by Saturday, so in the meantime I've splurged on a nice hotel in a tony suburb for a few days. Well, okay, I didn't really splurge - I'm actually paying less than half the normal rate, thanks to some mad internetting skills - but it still feels like a bit of an indulgence. I've got a living room, a bedroom, a huge bathroom with a closet in it, a microwave, a little fridge, a nice couch, two sinks, and two televisions (one for express checkout, one for adult entertainment). There's a heated pool, a weight room, a coin-op laundry room, and every morning they bring me a free USA Today, which, since I don't have any birdcages to line or fish to wrap, is perfectly useless - but it's a nice gesture. My principal complaint is that the bed is essentially one giant, squishy pillow covered in hundreds of smaller squishy pillows, and this is making it a bit hard to get a good night's sleep. My principal joy is that the hotel is within walking distance of a barbecue restaurant where last night I managed to have a big meal of pulled pork, green beans, cornbread, and fried corn-on-the-cob*, plus a gigantic bowl of apple cobbler with ice cream, for under $10. It's also near a bakery called the Puffy Muffin, which, now that I think of it, is probably what I should nickname my bed. Pity this'll be my last night on it.

Tomorrow Kate comes in to do some interviews, and we'll be staying with a friend of her mother's for a couple of nights. I'm most grateful for the hospitality, but I'm actually a bit sad to see the end of this little interlude at the Hilton. I didn't get to know any bellboys, I haven't seen any elevator operators, and I haven't received any mail or messages at the front desk, but I think if I were to stay here just a little longer all of those things just - and more - would definitely happen.

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* Fried corn-on-the-cob is, apparently, a thing here. A very delicious thing, as it happens, and something that I can't believe I'd never imagined before. I am going to get very fat in Nashville.