Malicious Mischief -- just your basic hotel hoods

 

I dreamed that I was running with a rag-tag group of lowlife hotel thieves. We'd find a cheap room, or better yet one where the guests had checked out early, and use it for a base of operations. From there we'd surveil the other units, going into the rooms to pilfer and steal when the occupants were away. 

"Hey, look," I said to one of the other members of my crew. "They use the same key for all of the rooms."

I looked around the room for any items of value, but finding none, I left the room in disgust. The previous guests had taken most of the furniture, leaving the mattress, but taking the bed frame. The rest of the room was stripped bare.

"No dice," I said. "They've got nothing to steal,"  the Sex Pistols' anarchic anthem of misanthropic narcissism "No Feelings" playing in my head, tagging my cerebral cortex as it squirreled around in my cranium.

That didn't stop my crew from going in to ransack the room further, overturning the mattress and rummaging through the drawers. If they couldn't find anything worthwhile, no doubt someone would wind up urinating on the wall as a calling card.

There was a dirt field surrounding the hotel, and I walked along the perimeter, which was fenced in rather poorly with cheap field fencing and extra long T-posts, held together with clear packaging tape. I tried to knock it down by kicking against the wire mesh, but the tape was pretty resilient. I got the feeling that someone was watching me, so I gave up and moved on.

I walked around the area and saw an Antron-99 CB antenna on a makeshift tower. I followed the coax and traced it to a small house nearby. As I was shaking the flimsy structure to try to knock it over, I noticed someone looking out of the window at me. I played it off like I was just admiring it and not attempting to vandalize it. 

"Hey, fellas," I said. "Lookie here. They've got themselves a nice little CB rig. You remember those, right?" They did not. The members of my little band of thugs were all too young to remember such things.

I went into a nearby garage, a barn-like structure that was decrepit and riddled with bullet holes, and looked around. From inside I could hear what sounded like some kids playing on a nearby hill. I peeped through one of the holes in the wood and saw another group of young thugs making a ruckus in the dirt. They were picking up rocks and throwing them, and some of the rocks struck the side of the building. I decided it was time to vacate, so I went back to our room and gathered up the other members. 

"Let's go guys," I said. "This place is a bust. Let's don't forget any of our stuff. Bob, you make sure to take the serving cart." I pointed to a rolling three tiered wire mesh chrome cart, exactly like the kind I have in my kitchen at home.

Bob was busy making snacks for everyone. There wasn't much to divvy up, so I wound up with some raw beets and a half a sandwich in tin foil. 

Outside, one of the couples with our group was standing next to their white 1990 Honda Accord coupe (the exact color, make and model as the one that I owned back in the early 2000s) when it started creeping forward and rolling downhill. I jumped into the car and pulled on the parking brake, and the car slowed down a little. I noticed that the car was in drive, so I put it into neutral, and it stopped just as I was about to hit a small tree. 

"You guys need to get that parking brake adjusted. You probably need new rear brakes, as well," I told the couple. "If it weren't for that little embankment around the tree, it wouldn't have stopped at all. Don't worry, they're easy to replace. I can help you with that."

The couple seemed relieved but weren't in any hurry to take me up on my offer, now that the immediate crisis was over. They mumbled a "thank you" and promised to get the brakes looked at sometime. 

That's about it, folks. I didn't pay the editor enough to tie my little story together with a cute little bow, so all I have is a few cutscenes,  pasted together with duct tape. And now my Saturday morning program will commence, sponsored, in part, by Winco Foods and Cafe Bustelo. Fender amplification and guitar products, along with locally sourced cannabis, are provided by Golding Ranch Charitable Trust.

(more suitable soundtrack music can be found here.)