"Air" Heads

   Two nights ago Tim and I stayed at an Air BnB in northern Palm Springs, and the experience revealed the sometimes looming minor shadow side of the “sharing economy.” Oh, nothing was horribly horrible. It's just that the adventure of travel sometimes offers up realities that don’t quite square with  fantasies or expectations, not that one has many of those left at this late date.  

   The stand-alone rooms were in a house owned by a gay couple in middle age--let's call them Davis and Stoolan--and situated in a slightly seedy neighborhood of one-story stucco affairs with parched front yards. The tiny bedroom had an uncomfortable twin bed and a desk. Beyond a nicely-appointed bathroom was a cozy kitchen with a fridge and stainless steel sink. 

   D & S had peppered about the place three separate page-long typed instruction notes, in laminated sleeves. The couple also had made an effort to decorate the place—Bette Midler and Liza Minelli posters suggest their aesthetic—and while there was nothing particularly wrong with it, it all felt a bit… off.

   So was our visit, from the very start. From the kitchen, a door led to the back patio and swimming pool. Venetian blinds covered it. When Tim pulled a string to open them, the blinds came crashing to the floor, making an impressive racket. “Oops,” Tim said. 

   Soon a balding man appeared on the patio. When I opened the kitchen door, he introduced himself as Davis. I said, "We had a little trouble with the blinds.” 

   “I heard,” he said, but he was friendly and forgiving  as he set about repairing them. 

   As it happened, they were affixed to the door by magnetized brackets. This made it inevitable, it seemed to me, that they'd come undone and fall to the floor. But, Davis explained, “We didn’t want to drill into the door."

   Davis presently excused himself, and Tim and I prepared to head downtown for dinner. 

   The door to our little place had a complex-seeming electronic lock. You pressed the keypad code and then a button marked with the image of a combination lock. Tim had operated it when we'd arrived. (Technological items and I long ago reached a truce: I won't use them; they, in turn, won't break.) 

   Now, on his way out to warm up the car, Tim said, "Just push the lock when you leave." I gathered my stuff and, at the door, turned the little mechanism on the inside door knob to lock it. Tim had said to "push the lock." I figured I knew what he meant. Tim is Taiwan-born; having lived in the U.S. for a decade, he speaks excellent English. Only occasionally does he muddle a word or a phrase. He had said, "Push the lock"; I assumed he'd meant, "Turn the doorknob lock mechanism." 

   After dinner, Tim dropped me back at our Air BnB so he could drive to a pharmacy. At the door, I punched in the code, pressed the "lock" button, and attempted to turn the knob. It didn't budge. And the keypad contraption didn't make the electronic wheezing sound I remembered from when Tim had used it. I tried several times, with similar results. Finally, dazed, I called Tim; he said he’d return. 

   While I waited, a white Mercedes drifted into the driveway, and a stocky man emerged. He offered a wide, bright smile and extended his hand, introducing himself as Stoolan. There was about him something of the excitable canine.
   I explained my predicament with the lock. 

   “No problem!” Stoolan chirped, enthusiastically. “We’re on the same team!” I wondered if he was in corporate Human Resources.

   He punched in the code, pressed the "lock" button, and tried the door handle. It didn't budge, and I felt momentarily vindicated.

   “Ah—that’s what it is,” he said. Evidently, by turning the inner doorknob's lock mechanism I'd shut us out. When Tim had said, "Push the lock," he'd meant, "Push the lock"--that is, the keypad button with the "lock" image on it. That's how I was supposed to lock the door.
   I apologized to Stoolan, muttering darkly about my technological illiteracy. 

   "Hey," he cried. "No big deal! We're on the same team! I'll go around and let you in." 

   A few hours later, Tim and I readied ourselves for bed.

   That’s when Tim discovered, to his horror, the ants.

   Tim doesn’t like bugs. He doesn’t like insects. He doesn’t like anything that crawls. Many times I’ve used a piece of paper towel to carry a wall-hanging spider out of our home and into the great out of doors. In extreme cases I’ve killed the things, but I don’t like to. As much as Tim loathes creepy-crawly creatures, I don’t like to end a life. Everybody lives—that’s my motto.

   We spent a moment considering what to do. Bailing seemed an option. "We could find a hotel downtown," I ventured. Tim demurred: "I’m too tired.” I agreed. So we were faced with the ants.

   They crawled in a line across the kitchen counter, down the wall, along the floor, and into the bathroom. I discovered a can of Cutter, an insect repellent, on a shelf, and sprayed the ant conga line into silence. (Here the motto “everybody lives” takes a back seat to the one saying “my life will be easier if Tim is happy.”) Tim still found random ants crawling in various areas, to his consternation, and urged me to get my suitcase off the floor.

   Finally, frustrated, I called Stoolan. He answered right away, to his credit. When I mentioned the ants, he said, “Oh, yes, if you’d read the note you’d have seen that we have them in the hotter weather. There’s a can of Cutter on the shelf in the kitchen, and if you spray…” I said I’d found the can, and was spraying. He said that should do the trick, and added, for good measure, “If you’d read the note you would have known about that.” He said it cheerfully, of course—we’re on the same team!—but he was plainly ensuring that I knew the error was mine.

   After we hung up, I picked up a note from a small front-room table. At the top it read, “THIS IS A NO-SMOKING HOUSEHOLD.” Below that was a short disquisition on ants and hot weather (“We’ve had everything sprayed!”) which ended by directing the reader to the can of Cutter.
   I am not much of a direction-follower—I do not say that proudly—and so I realized that when I’d seen the no-smoking message in capital letters at the top of the page, earlier in the evening, I’d declined to read the rest of the note. Who knew that informational treasures therein lay buried?

   After a rocky night's sleep, we were glad to put the place in our rearview mirror the next morning. We considered whether or not to write a review on the Air BnB site, but it struck us that even a gently mixed one—especially if it mentioned ants—might elicit a return review from Davis and Stoolan detailing the Venetian blinds fiasco and our evident inability to read notes and follow simple directions. We declared it a wash, and decided not to write anything a'tall.

   The challenging thing about travel, of course, is also what makes it exciting: you never know what’s going to happen. Yes, certain general expectations would seem to apply to something like an Air BnB room—for one, you’d reasonably presume you'll not encounter ants—but that’s the joy of travel; you never really know. 

   Best of all, on a trip like ours, is the fact that however uncomfortable a place turns out to be, you know you’ll leave it the next morning.