Thanks SB for your thoughtful reply to my blog post. I've moved out of the McKinney Inn this morning, and I'm writing notes at the Backstage Coffeehouse in downtown McKinney. The McKinney Inn is a rundown hotel that has two very vigilant owners, a husband and a wife, immigrants from the world of India or Pakistan. I was sleeping in, and the wife rang my room multiple times to remind me of an eleven AM check out time.
Before Eleven AM, the husband banged on my door to alert me to the impeding checkout time, and I didn't answer any of the calls, nor did I answer the door until I was finished with my shower. What kind of place wants to put you on the street without a shower, and what ever happened to late checkout times? Especially when a guy has stayed in the same room, declining towel and sheet services a few times, dropping almost 500 dollars over two weeks, paying two twenties every night, untraceable and unaccountable cash.
Surprising, even with taking a shower and moving out my suitcase, two computer satchels and assorted bagged groceries, I was driving away in my truck, the radio clock reading 11:18 AM. Moments before my departure, the owner and her maid already were tossing my sheets and cleaning my toilet as I was packing my last bag. All three of us were moving around the room without talking. I gave the maid ten cans of food with gluten ingredients, bought before my dietary discovery, but I'm thinking the wife laid claim to them. It’s a pity about the gluten intolerance because I love Ramen Pride.
Two cars of staying over residents were parked outside other motel doors. All the other residents had been chased away. Every night, by three AM, most of the parking spots are taken. But the motel is never full before dark, as a good resort hotel might be.
I remember a middle-aged woman haggling with the wife, how always wore a silk sari, upset that a five dollars a night surcharge had been tagged on her week-by-week rent. The wife had noticed a cat on the premises, and a sign at the check-in window clearly labeled that as a five-dollar a night surcharge. The woman was arguing that the cat had stayed temporarily. Ask the man, and the room rated 40 dollars a night. If I asked the wife, she demanded 45 dollars a night. The counter held hundreds of colored copies of driver license mug shots; these the couple reviewed each time one came to pay. I heard a guy on a cell phone in the lot haggling with his credit card company, trying to learn when an unauthorized charge was coming off his card so he could book another night.
It's tough to run a roadhouse hotel; especially when one lost vigilance, and one of the rooms could turn into a meth lab. I know a similar hotel south of Kalamazoo that is plagued by long-term residents who are thrown out when a meth lab is discovered, leaving a hotel owner with a burdensome, expensive, law-mandated cleanup job. I've noticed couples coming to the drive-up check-in window, and asking for one or two hours stays, so there's a bit of human trafficking and sex trade in the rooms. Occupants in room 39 to my west frequently woke me up with cum cries. The walls were thin, and the dialog was impossible to ignore.
So on one hand, I am offended when a hotel owner bangs on my door to alert me to check out time. On the other hand, I see the couple living in a 24-hour film noir movie with a genuine neon hotel sign permanently broadcasting a VACANCY message, a pair who exists in a business where only tough people avoid post-traumatic stress disorder.
I'm getting the skinny on McKinney, learning about its history, including an old cotton mill, and learning about its future as building lots for McMansions. It's incredible to see the rolling hills of pecans and osage orange trees, the fenced in former cattle stockyards, wheat fields and parcels covered with a strange kind of Texas sunflower with multiple small heads on a single stalk give way to hills penned in with retaining walls and construction sites dusty with the white chalk crumbles revealed when North Texas soil is turned. A few nights ago, I drove along the Dallas Parkway, a tollway as so many of the new roads are in red states, and passed its terminus at the border of Plano and Frisco. Plano is now as built up as a town can be, with gated communities with walled campuses bordering every boulevard. Frisco is rapidly matching Plano's development, and I drove the Dallas parkway service drive along the new miles of tollway under construction. I went miles north without running out of tollway construction, soon to bring commuters to sleepy Texas towns with female names, like Celina, Melissa and Anna.
I'm seeing a lot of interesting sites, and I've been looking for either a video camera or a digital SLR to capture the action. So I'll point out the foxy Detroit woman with the lens of my camera next time we go out on a run! Wilbo
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