My boyfriend Tom and I have several friends who live In Boston, Massachusetts so we try to make it up there from Philadelphia every couple of months. We made the long drive up there for the weekend in January of 2001. We started our drive at 2 in the afternoon. It wasn’t pretty. We got lost. A lot. It was *freezing.* We vowed to fly next time.

It’s amazing how tired you can get from just sitting in a car for eight hours. Like I said we got lost A LOT!! Two people with a so-so sense of direction can be a bad combination on a road trip.

My boyfriend made a reservation at Howard Johnson. He said they had decent rooms at a decent rate. We arrive at the hotel and go to our room. It is nearly one am. There’s no linen on the bed and no light bulbs in the lamps. We call the front desk. The lady in charge of linen has gone home for the day. Apparently linen is such a specialized duty only one person can be in charge of it. How clever. We lug all of our stuff to the front desk. We get another hotel key. We go to our second room of the night. It is now 1:15 in the morning. The bathroom is not stocked and there’s no remote for the TV (the only way it can be turned on.) We try the lamps in this room and again there’s no bulbs.

We call the front desk again. We lug all of our stuff to the front desk *again.* We get another room key. We get to this room which appears perfect. We collapse on the bed. There’s loud music playing above us which is making the room practically vibrate. There’s a night club above our heads that doesnt close until 3 am. It is now 1:30 am. Welcome to Boston.