I am not an ostrich. I do not live with my head in the sand. I watch enough television to know that things go on in hotel rooms that I don’t want to know about. Most important I am not naive enough to think that I am the first person to stay in the room I have just rented. That all being said here is what happened during a recent hotel stay.

So tra la, tra la we leave our room on our way to go to dinner. This was a nice hotel, kind of what you would think was up scale. FYI we have spent several nights of our lives in shall we say more than a few pegs down from the top ten of the list motels. Yes, the kind where you don’t even want to take your shoes off, but that was then and this is now. As we walked down the hall towards the elevators of this current hotel another hotel guest was walking toward us and he asked if we were staying in room number XXX as he was placing his room key card in his door a few doors down from ours, and opened it. Yes, we said not thinking anything of it. Then he goes on to tell us that he stayed in our room the previous two weeks and what a great room it was. What? When? We politely acknowledged that it was indeed a nice room and we parted.

But once on the elevator we looked at each other and there was this ‘ewe’ moment.

This quite unassuming encounter opened in me a whole new line of thoughts. On our way out to dinner we discussed those few words. We talked about who he was, why he stayed in a hotel for weeks at a time, not to mention how he could afford to stay in this hotel as the nightly rate we were paying made it, more likely than not, that we were going to eat food served to us thru a drive up window rather than sitting at a nice table with cloth napkins.

Then we came back to the room, but not as anxious to go in as we were when we checked in earlier in the day. I of course checked the closets to make sure we were still the only two in there. I still can’t convince myself that there wasn’t some way he could still use his key card from the week before. Unrealistic as that sounds. Just let it go Trina I told myself. As I said when I started, I know I was not the first person to stay in this really nice room. But still… I don’t want to know who was here before me. I don’t want to know anything about them.

So I went into the bathroom and as I was in there I looked at the whirlpool tub/shower and it had lost its luster from when I first saw it. I had thought about filling the tub and getting jetted in relaxation, as I am sure anyone would. But the guy that had the room before me just washed away all the relaxation dreams. A quick shower was all I could muster.

After a bit of television it was time for bed. Now here I let my CSI television watching almost get the best of me. Almost. We always, first thing, take off the bedspread or duvet or whatever they have covering the bed. We have for some time brought our own blankets. His is brown and mine is blue and we—well see this is some of the things you just don’t need or probably want to know about the previous guests that stayed in your room the night or nights before you.

So I put my head on the pillow and tried not to think about which side of the bed this man slept on when my husband says, “Did you ever think about the pillows and how many people have breathed into them over the life of the pillow?” So even though the pillow case was clean and crisp and smelled okay I couldn’t use it. It ended up across the room on the floor. Let the next guy sleep on a pillow that spent the night on the floor of the bedroom of that guy down the hall!

So please my friends, take to heart my plight least it happen to you. Do not tell me or anyone where you have slept. Even though it might be somewhat cool to read a plaque displayed in a few B&B’s across our country that, “Washington Slept Here,” or “Lincoln Slept Here,” I don’t want to know that Joe Schmow from down the hall has used my bathroom, made popcorn in my microwave and lastly, slept in my bed! Sleep well.

Trina Machacek lives in Eureka, Nevada. Her book ITY BITS can be found on Kindle. Share your thoughts and opinions with her atitybytrina@yahoo.com