Growing up, my family holidayed at caravan parks, the friendly ghettos of the holiday world. Every caravan park has the same characters; the woman in the sarong who's always putting out washing, the shirtless alpha beer belly who knows everyone loudly, the always sunburnt guy with the huge protruding adam’s apple, and the annoying children who take your fishing spot. Instant holiday nemesis.
A hierarchy would establish itself among the caravan kids. My sister and I started a drug ring from up the fig tree, trading sherbet on the black market. How is ‘Wizz Fizz’ not cocaine for children?
In between business hours we’d swim in the motel pool next door and catch crabs with sticks or twist for pippies. No one ever messed with us.
When you stay at a caravan park you get a special key. With it, you are able to access the bathroom block, a dim dungeon set out like a horse stable. In fact, you can probably converse with with a horse over the partitions in the showers. Her name is Kim Kardashian.
Our Mum used to make us wear thongs so we wouldn’t get warts on out feet. No matter the size of the shower cubicle or the number of towel racks, somehow all of your belongings would still end up wet. An unpredictable shower nozzle responded as though you were trying to put out a fire on the ceiling. How else does so much water splash entirely outside the shower area? Did Poseidon use the shower before me?
Collective hair strands would swirl around the sinkhole like seaweed in a strong current. It was a new ecosystem. As I left the facilities I was never sure if I was cleaner or just wetter. There’s a difference.
The toilet blocks were usually cleaned between 10 and 11am, because no one ever needs to go to the bathroom then. Basically, an apocalyptic disinfectant storm would sweep through the general area. So fresh and so clean clean. And so very wet, even the toilet paper. You'd have to go through half a soggy roll before reaching remotely dry sheets. You could make a replica paper mache toilet in the mean time.
So yes, you need a key for all that, a special key. Not just any member of the public can access those fine facilities.
Hotels and Hostels are different. There’s an ’S’ which separates. The ’S’ stands for Sex, Snoring and Strangers, which means hostels are for people who wish to have sex with a stranger whilst snoring. I’ve never been able to sleep in a hostel, and not because I’ve been having sex with a stranger whilst snoring. I’m a light sleeper, which means I need no light, particularly of the fluorescent variety. And I guess I’ve just never found frat parties in a rabbit warren that relaxing. Are the parents ever coming home?
A hotel room is all about the minibar. I never take anything, just looking thanks. It’s like window grocery shopping. The overpriced minibar items often end up sharing with tallies from the convenience store. You guys get along now. (Slam)
Then there’s the bathroom. What is it we’re looking for, here? It’s not as though the toilet is a ‘jack-in-the-box’ and the shower a fire hydrant. But we do want the toilet roll to be folded into a delicate triangle. It makes us feel special. As do the pretty prepackaged toiletries, but what is in them? Ah well, what does it matter if you wash your hair with possum semen? It’s in a cute canister.
Then there’s the shower cap you’re more likely to use as a condom, and a hair dryer louder than a dated Boeing, with the effectiveness of an old lady breathing on your scalp.
My usual dilemma is switching the lever from bath to shower, like I’m steering a heavy steam train.
Once I stayed in a budget hotel in San Francisco. The water only poured through the bath tap. There was no plug so we used a sock. It turns out that I just couldn’t find the right lever for the shower head. Time for new socks.
Staying in an Air BnB is like visiting your childhood pen pal friend but they’re not there, and I don’t think they ever existed. Who were you writing to all those years ago? Your Air BnB host wants you to feel really comfortable and have everything you need and more, but you’re also being judged and rated so don’t fk it up. Do the dishes, damn it.
Three out of Four Air BnBs we stayed at in USA and Canada required toilet maintenance. Was it something we ate? At home, you just flush and it’s done. In the US, it repeatedly swirls around and swells up like evidence in a murder case. Guilty or innocent? It’s judge, jury and excretioner.
