Last night I awoke at 12:30am to the sensation that somebody was softly tapping my hip.

Then I realized my hip felt damp.

On with the light. Sit up. The cieling is dripping on me, slowly -- the tap tap tap I felt. Or more correctly, the smoke alarm directly above my bed is dripping on me. My first groggy instinct is that the room above me must have flooded their bathroom, until I realize I am on the second story of a two story building. But all of yesterday it poured and poured and poured, and even now I can hear the rain pattering ever so sweetly against the window.

So the roof must be leaking. My next groggy instinct: both to inspect the leak and disconnect the smoke alarm so nothing shorts.

Yeah, hotel smoke alarms are tamper-proof. So that thing goes off full scale as soon as I twist it out of its little casing. It screams. I put it back. It screams more quietly. I let go, it screams, stops, screams again. It is not an intermittent pulse -- it's a piercing single note (I'm sure I woke up a whole host of nearby dogs) that NEVER PAUSES.

I call the front desk. Some young front desk attendant answers -- I explain -- she says, "oh, hold on," -- I'm thinking, yes! remote disconnect! -- I get the dial tone. The alarm is still screaming. I run over and open the door thinking she's sent someone. I wait several cold screaming minutes. I call back. She says, "oh is it still going off?" Her answers to the obvious questions: No, I'm alone at the front desk so I personally can't come over. No one else is here. I can't send maintenance, there's no one else here, there's no one I can call. I can switch you to another room, but you'll have to come down to the front desk. (The front desk is about 100 yards down, walking outside.)

With the alarm still screaming bloody smoking murder in my ears, I grab all my clothes off the hangers, shove them in a bag, throw all my toiletries into my toiletry bag, grab my bowl and utensils and mug and glass and throw all of my newly bought groceries back into the three bags from whence they came, grab my back pack and all the books and pens and pads and crosswords lying around, and finally, grab my boots, throw on some flip flops.

At this point, just as I am leaving the screaming mimi for good, a boy, who could have been no older than mid-collegiate and seemed younger to me, comes running across the parking lot waving and hollering. He says, "WAIT! WAIT! ARE YOU SURE IT'S NOT THE ALARM CLOCK??" My ear drums can only bleed morosely in reply. I tell him I'm pretty sure that i-- DO YOU MIND IF I JUST CHECK?? (In order to ask these moronic questions, he has to, of course, YELL above the din.) He goes into my room where the alarm clock is situated next to the bed and just below the bone-chillingly loud smoke alarm and literally taps the alarm clock to be sure. Now fully convinced, he climbs up on the bed and yanks the smoke alarm straight off, wires fraying and all, and says, "yep, it's the smoke alarm."

I then take all 5 bags, my book, my boots, and various and sundry other items -- I have absolutely no part of my body that is not clutching, gripping, or shouldering a belonging -- and hike all the way down to the front desk in the drizzle, with one side of my boxer shorts riding up my leg, with this guy following along behind me explaining how people call him at 6 in the morning insisting the smoke alarm is going off when it's just the alarm clock and he's not even thinking twice about shouldering a bag or five, to be greeted by a girl who can hardly be 18 who apologizes and hands me a new room key and says that this boy -- "the manager," -- arrived just in time to come "help" me.

I then once again take all 5 bags, my book, my boots, and various and sundry other items -- I have absolutely no part of my body that is not clutching, gripping, or shouldering a belonging -- and hike all the way back to where the new room is slightly below my other room.

Only to find that the key card doesn't work. It's not flashing green for go or red for no, it's flashing yellow. Yellow?? What, am I not keying the slot cautiously enough? As I am robotically sticking the key through the slot and consistently inciting the yellow light, you guessed it, the door opens, and I am greated by a rather bewildered looking young woman who is wondering what this frizzy-haired, boxer-wearing bag lady is doing on her doorstep rattling her lock at 12:45am. I give her a six word answer -- "they -- wrong room -- dial front desk?" to which she agrees and closes the door on me. Three sound-proof minutes in the drizzle later, she opens her door and says, "They're really confused. They said go back to the front desk."

I then once again take all 5 bags, my book, my boots, and various and sundry other items -- I have absolutely no part of my body that is not clutching, gripping, or shouldering a belonging -- and hike all the way back to the front desk, where the boy is ranting in Bulgarian on the phone and the girl is once again apologizing and saying no one ever tells her anything and they do this to her all the time, and all the rooms in the hotel are full except for two. The boy gets off the phone and nods at her and the girl then promises me the 'big' room, which she gives me still another new key card for, and which turns out to be right next to the room whose doorstep I was standing on.

This room, thankfully, is empty. My card works. It's the 'handicapped accessible' room, so the bathroom is twice as large. It has two warm, dry beds.

I put my stuff down and at 1am thankfully climb into the one that's NOT under the smoke alarm, and lay me down to sleep.