Because during my spring break in March 2000, I was quite literally haunted.
It all started on a Saturday morning and my law school friends and I overslept and missed our return flight from Vegas. Or technically, you might argue it all started the night before, when we out too late having so much fun that it caused us to miss our flight home the next morning. We had all come in on different flights, and I originally considered myself lucky to fly on out on standby to the very next flight out to Denver, where I was supposed to connect, while my friends were routed on a couple differing connecting flights to get back home to Nashville.
I got to Denver smoothly, and then my luck promptly ran out.
Consider:
I had missed my original connection when I missed my first flight, so I was getting out of Denver was dependent on catching another flight home on standby;
All the flights were booked solid for the rest of the day;
My luggage, however, was checked all the way to Nashville as though I would make it on the next flight from Denver on standby, so it flew home without me (this was before 9/11, so that could happen back then);
The Denver airport had just opened and didn't have many restaurants or services yet. It was built out in the boonies and there were no other business nearby;
I had exactly three dollars in my pocket.
All of the above meant that when the last flight back of the day back to Nashville departed, I was stuck in a random city with no clothes, no transportation, and no money. I went to ground transportation to find a hotel that had a free airport shuttle so that I could get some sleep and try again tomorrow for a flight with room to fly me home standby. This was before the days of Uber, so it was my only method of getting too and from the airport. I called numbers for advertised hotels until I found a Ramada that could come get me, and it took me on a drive that seemed to take forever, which was only fitting because it was taking me straight to Hell.
It did, at least, stop at a Wendy's along the way to let me blow my remaining three dollars on two items from buy the dollar menu. I was about to enter the Gates of Hell, but at least I did so with a chicken Cesar salad in my belly.
I got to the motel (definitely not a hotel), and booked a room on my credit card. I got ready for bed with about 80 cents left in my immediate possession. I had to use the plastic water cups to store my contacts, because my toiletries were in Nashville inside of my suitcase.
I was exhausted and miserable.
To my considerable dismay, when I laid down and tried to go to sleep, I started hearing noises in the bathroom. It sounded like someone was taking the lid of the top of the tank in the toilet and moving it around.
I told myself it was just water running, and I was mostly convinced of that explanation, but whatever was causing it, it was making too much noise for me to sleep. I went into the bathroom to see if I could fix it.
Of course, the noise stopped when I got inside, and there was no obvious problem inside of the lid. So I put it back on and tried for bed again, and the toilet went back to rattling as before. I tried to sleep through it for about half an hour without success, at one point thinking that I might have heard the bathroom sink turn on. I was a little bit frightened by the sound, but mostly just annoyed by the faulty plumbing in the room, since it had been a long day and I really needed some sleep.
I tossed and turned having the occasional concern about the weird noises from the bathroom, but mostly I just tried to ignore it and get to sleep.
Then I heard footsteps. I heard someone walk from the bathroom, right in front of the bed, to the other side of the room.
I jumped up and raced to turn on the lights by the door. I hadn't checked behind the shower curtain when I went to the bathroom, or when I had checked in, and I surmised that someone must have been hiding in there the whole time.
I was not in the mood to deal with this game, and I was in fantastic physical shape at that point in my life, so I was ready to take down whoever I found. With adrenaline pumping and anger boiling, I turned on the lights and turned around.
There was no one was there.
Had I a car nearby, if Uber had existed, or if I had cash for a cab, I would have gone to a different hotel at that moment. But I was out of options, and the hotel shuttle didn't start running until the next morning, so I was stuck. Stuck in a room where the bathroom rattled and I heard invisible footsteps. I would have rather there been an actual person inside of my room.
At least then I would have had an explanation and proof that I wasn't crazy, at least as it related to the footsteps.
The rattling noise got slightly better after I heard the footsteps, which I suppose makes sense because whatever was inside the bathroom had finished and walked over by the window. After another hour or two of relative calm, I finally got a little bit of sleep.
I had a dream that night about two otherworldly creatures with grey skin and glowing eyes that were coming after me and destroying everything in their paths. It was one of those ultra-realistic ones where you feel your emotions vividly as you're dreaming and it seems real even after you wake up.
When I did, it was still dark outside and I was positive that between the nightmare, the footsteps, and the bathroom sounds, there was something very evil in my room.
I told it to go away, in my best exorcist voice, which I learned in my Southern Baptist childhood, and I might have awakened my neighbors (assuming my visitor already hadn't) in the process. The whole scene may have sounded either frightening or ridiculous to anyone who heard (or to my current readers, I suppose), but the room felt a little calmer on the other side.
I laid back down and got fitful sleep for the next hour or so until it was close enough to morning to shower, put back on the same clothes I had worn yesterday, and wait on the first shuttle of the day back to the airport.
When I got there, my airline (sadly, it wasn't Spirit Air) told me there were two flights out that day to Nashville. The evening flight was oversold by two seats already, although some of those people might miss connections just like I had the day before. The morning flight was full except for one upgraded seat that it could sell to me, but it was too fancy for me to take on standby.
The seat would cost $750, and I had about $1000 in my savings account.
I debated the cost of another night without clothes, toiletries or cash, and an airport shuttle to a motel that might or might not be haunted. I pondered the cost of missing classes the next day if I didn't get home, and wondered at what point the Nashville airport would stop holding my luggage. I worried that my cell phone battery was getting low, and I had no charger with me (this was back when chargers were individualized to their phone, so I couldn't just walk in to the airport book store and buy a cord that way you can today). I considered the cost of blowing what amounted to my life's savings and the shame I would feel for blowing over $800 extra because I missed my original Vegas flight by about 10 minutes.
I weighed all those factors, and then I concluded that no amount of money or shame outweighed the misery of spending another night stranded in Denver as a haunted homeless guy.
I bought the seat and flew home to Nashville, got my luggage, and met my friend Chris at Cheeseburger Charlie's just in time for the NCAA Tournament Selection Show.
Sometimes I wonder in retrospect if maybe I was just so exhausted that my mind starting playing tricks on me that night. Perhaps it was, but regardless, I slept in my own bed that night never having been happier to be home.
I went to bed early and made it to class the next day. The thing in my hotel room, thankfully (for me at least), stayed behind.
And I still think these were the right decisions for both of us.
