The Bates Motel!
Or at least that's how we thought of it.

When my first son was a newborn my wife and I were going down to Westchester County (just north of NYC) to visit a friend for the weekend. Wally (a nickname, based on a slight resemblance to the older brother on "Leave It To Beaver") was engaged to a girl named Mary who turned out to be a true nutbar. The engagement was broken about a month before the wedding- and Wally, as one would expect from a friend of mine, decided to hold his own Bachelor Party on what would have been his wedding day, to celebrate still being a bachelor. Lots of food, lots of beer, lots of drunken louts hurling a football around and laughing like hell... in all, a great time.

So my wife and I left our son with his grandparents and started down toward NYC from the Utica area. We left rather late in the day, planning on getting as far as we could that night and finishing the trip in the morning.

As it happened, our route took us along the Taconic Parkway. To explain what this means, I will describe it thus: take a road going through the Yorkshire Dale, make it twice as wide with no shoulder, make it two lanes going the same way, and fill it with homicidal maniacs driving between 90 and 100 miles per hour. (That's between 145 and 160 kph for you metric types.) It was scary as hell for me as I was the one driving- so for my wife it was like being a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. (Cool points if you get the reference.)

So when we saw a sign for a motel, we got off the Parkway gladly and went looking.

Have you ever seen an American "motor court" from the 1950s? It's basically a square U-shape with parking in front of the units. This was a particularly grim little place, long since run to seed. When I went to check in I was confronted by a four foot tall woman with grey hair and wild staring eyes who rolled off of her bed in the next room to attend the front desk, and said about three words the entire time. In a prominent place behind the desk was an autographed photo of Phyllis Diller.

Seriously- I was looking for Norman Bates as we went to our room.

We got our suitcase and went into the room, which reeked of old cigarettes and other things I didn't want to think about, and found it to be quite up-to-date if you were living in about 1962. There was no TV, and the only entertainment was a clock radio boasting "Solid State Electronics". But it had a flattish surface with some sort of soft things at the end that served as a bed, so we elected to go along with it.

Bear in mind that we were in our late 20s at the time, and our hormones were still boiling at an almost adolescent level. So I suppose it's not too much of a surprise that we got a bit horny despite the surroundings.

As she was still nursing at the time, my wife was not on birth control pills, so we were relying on a diaphragm and spermicidal foam. Unfortunately we never did quite get the hang of that- inserting the diaphragm was a skill neither of us ever really acquired, or at least we weren't very good at it. But my wife went into the bathroom to do her best with it anyway.

I lay there in the horrid little bed, naked and waiting for my wife to emerge in her while lacy nightgown, as ready for a good romp as any young man. I lay there, one thin partition away from her as she struggled with the unfamiliar and awkward equipment that she was trying to insert into her nether regions. As I lay there I heard a muffled explosion and some very bad language, followed by a muttered "...all over the fucking place!" and tried not to think about what was going on in the bathroom.

Then my wife emerged in her white lace nightgown, her nipples hard and very visible through the thin lace, with a shy and demure look on her face- and, perched like a white lacy bow on top of her head, a large puff of spermicidal foam in her hair.

It took a couple of minutes for me to get control of my laughter enough to gasp out that she should look at the mirror.

I did get laid- but it took a while to get her calmed enough, and for me to get the giggles out of my system.

Oh, who am I kidding- I've been giggling even as I write this!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jan 2008, 1:35, 5 replies)

You Bastard!
You stole my title. I was going to do a tale about a place in Birmingham we called the Bates Motel...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 3:07, closed)

Yay!
I get the reference - am I cool now, amiamiami.
( girlinthehole, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 8:36, closed)

Pfffft!
This season's must-have erotic accessory - a large puff of spermicidal foam!

Click!
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:15, closed)

You recognized it as Tom Lehrer?
Then yes, my dear, cool points abound.

Seriously, the woman was scaring the shit out of me- she had a room just off of the office with a bed in it and a B&W TV next to it, both visible from the desk. When we went to check in and check out she noticed us there, then rolled off her bed to come to the counter, giving us a truly terrifying glimpse up her skirt as she did so. And she had unkempt curly grey hair, and eyes like Uncle Fester, and said no more than she absolutely needed to, in a rather hoarse and windy voice, like someone who hadn't spoken to anyone but her dear departed husband for about twenty years.

The Taconic Parkway was much more relaxing than that place.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:17, closed)

You've got me chuckling just imagining it. *click*
Nice reference.

For might makes right, until they've seen the light, they've got to be protected, all their rights respectd, untill somebody we like can be elected. :)
(Musuko, Mon 21 Jan 2008, 12:55, closed)