Retro Motel Adventure



  Royal Palms Resort 

We have arrived! It’s dark, so the real exploring will have to wait until tomorrow morning. For now—we settle into our very unique motel.

The first thing I notice? The TV is hung over the sofa. Interesting angle for watching TV—you’ve got to tilt your head just right, like you’re birdwatching.



Then I see it: a turquoise refrigerator with a matching microwave, next to a little sink. This place doesn’t just whisper “retro”—it screams it. 





    The layout is… creative. One queen bed sits right in the living room, while the other queen bed is in the bedroom, which also happens to contain the only door to the bathroom. Translation: anyone sleeping in the living room has to tiptoe through the “master suite” in the middle of the night if nature calls. It could get interesting, but hey—we’ll survive.


   


    Calvin popped the sofa out into a bed, piled cushions around like his own private fort facing the tv on the wall. Out came the game console... on went the headphones. Mom said no!   We needed a driver, Calvin needed to play his game, he is on a time limit before it no longer exists. After five years playing this game, he needs to conquer the last world! Have game will travel. 


And then—my big moment of genius. I’d brought along a bottle of wine. (Mistake number one: not buying a box instead.) Of course, the only thing this motel didn’t have was a corkscrew. So I improvised—with tiny pliers and a pocketknife.

The cork slipped deeper. And deeper. And finally—plop!—straight into the bottle, sending a red wine geyser splashing all over me, the microwave, the refrigerator, and the turquoise retro walls.

Panicked, I grabbed paper towels and scrambled to wipe everything down before anyone else noticed. But of course—Pam noticed. And better yet, she caught the whole thing on camera. Nothing gets past that one. Was my face red, my shirt a permanent reminder of my wine opening incident, and Pam's video of the entire episode.








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