The Kitty Pool

I'm still in Palm Springs and can't wait for the breakfast buffet.  

When I arrived at check-in here at the hotel, I was told that most of the rooms were full.  I had my choice of a king-sized bed behind the elevator or two double beds.  I chose the two double beds and went to the room on Floor 2 at which time I remembered how small a double bed is. I did a u-turn and went back to ask for the elevator room on Floor 2.  

I wondered, how bad can it be? 

Really bad.  I heard the elevator all night.  Why were that many people riding the elevator in the early morning?  I might grin-and-bear it through late night bar closers or sunrise joggers, but 3am?  I suspect that it was the poor souls from elevator rooms on other floors doing a strange elevator dance and hence contributing to the very issue they were trying to solve.  Perhaps it started with the sleep walker on floor 5 riding the elevator back and forth from the lobby.  Floor 3 wakes up and gets on, rides down, and heads to the desk to complain.  He rides back up, waking Floor 4 who also hears the sleep elevator-rider.  Floor 3 hears Floor 4 making his return trip and is that a lot of cursing from Floor 2?  This continues all night.  It's the only way I can explain the amount of elevator noise all night.

The next morning, I ask for a new room.  Unfortunately, there were none left.  Late that evening which much closer to elevator time, I bought ear plugs so that I could sleep.  The grocery store only had the bright orange ones and the packaging indicated that they were for shooting firearms.  Perfect.

Back in my hotel room, I twisted the ear plugs as instructed and put them in my ears.  I fell asleep instantly, but woke up at 3am feeling extremely uncomfortable from the ear plugs that had now expanded.  The pressure was so great that it felt as if firearms had actually blown out the inside of my ear canals.  I took out the earplugs and listened to the elevator dance for a few hours.

The next day (yesterday morning), I asked for a new room.  The staff had decided that I suffered long enough and granted my wish.  Last night, I was so happy to fall asleep in my quiet room without earplugs.

That is, until I woke up to a crying cat outside.  

This post just turned into live action news reporting, because while typing the last sentence I heard the cat.  I just went downstairs to the pool area.  I stood there for a few minutes before I heard it again and I followed the cries.  I found the stray cat by the Kiddie Pool which, as of now, has been renamed the Kitty Pool.  I couldn't lure the cat out of the bushes, so I went to tell the front desk.

"Where is it?"

"It's by the Kitty Pool."

The hotel staff is out there now trying to round up Fluffy.  

I can't promise that I'll get sleep tonight, but I'm really going to try.  Good Night.