My Hiatus At A Dead End

I am looking square in the face at vanity. Theme rooms at motels is not going to cut it for me forever. At a certain point it's just more of the same. Take a theme, put miscellaneous items related to that around the room, work up a big piece of artwork, and you've got it.

All the while the staff is busy laughing at me. I think that would be true. Did you catch the guy staying in the "Day at the Beach" room? He checked in, went to his room, came out once to get a limbo stick and ice, then was back in his room the rest of the night. How pathetic to think that the motel is in this simply for the money, cashing in on people's fantasies. Can't afford a ticket to Africa? Don't have the time to travel to Tahiti? Don't worry, we have a room with some plastic palm trees and a few cannibal nose bones.

You show up at a theme motel and they're rubbing their hands together -- another victim in our clutches. That's about what you are. A victim to their greed, to a corporate owner somewhere who hears cash registers ringing every time you have a fantasy. Of course they keep it all quite G-rated. But were they to spice it up blue, that'd be just more victimization for you. Except you'd be sneaking in and slithering out.

I should have stayed home, frankly, and put up some beach towels on the wall and soaked my feet while watching the Travel channel. One, I could've gone more places and, two, I'd still be home saving money. I simply hate everything that makes me seem pathetic, being just another shill for the corporations, cashing in on people's desire for fun.

I've been to one of those family amusement parks before. What a sham. It's the same thing as a theme motel. You think they have an old town from 1910 or something -- the Town Square. But take another look. The upstairs windows are all painted black. And all they're selling in the "quaint shoppes" is just junk from wholesale toy and trinket catalogs. Those old buildings are replicas only. There's nothing up there. Someone shows up at night to sweep up, to lock up the park, and to laugh that you were gullible enough to show up. It gives me a headache to think it's not real.

As to my hiatus, that's the dead end it's at. Fake plants, fake tiki, paintings on walls, plastic palms, two bit dives spruced up to pass as theme motels. Theme motels are my new arch enemy. I started seeing through them the first time I caught myself faking an "Ahh." Or looking at the theme as stated as the beginning and end of what that theme could be. The only way you can convince yourself it's real, after realizing it's not, is to be sedated, drugged, or with a date. Being alone at a theme motel is just asking for realization ... that all is vanity.

You may as well check out. I've checked out. I'm back home. Sitting here alone -- typing this cry from the pit of my heart -- wondering what to do next. Where do I turn? I'm a sitting duck. I'm everyone's victim. I desperately need a hiatus, a real one. But how to take it. I'm flummoxed at every turn. I thought I'd lose myself in a theme motel. But really I found myself, and now I need to decide what to do with myself ... it's crazy ... I can see so much.