OUR MOTEL HAS always had a high average, in comparison with other
motels, of repeat business. Part of our success in drawing customers
back again and again has been due to the fact that our motel is new and
that we make a point of keeping it spotless; part of our success in
this direction has been due to the deluxe service rendered by Grant,
who acts the part of general handyman par excellence. The goodwill of
the customers, that intangible thing so vital to any business, we make
a special effort to capture. The customers are legion for whom Grant
has fixed minor mechanical defects in their cars or traveling
equipment, or whose cars he has pushed down the highway until they
would start. I often think he is so helpful more from a spirit of
natural kindness than from a mercenary sense of good business. One time
the occupants of a car, after learning our rates, declined to stay.
Their car, however, declined to leave. After the driver had tried for
several minutes to start the motor, muttering beneath his breath curses
that seemed directed toward the battery, Grant good-naturedly got into
our car and pushed them around off the driveway, onto the highway and
on the road to our competitors.
Occasionally we get customers who are traveling with a house trailer.
Their usual explanation is, "We wanted the comfort of a real cabin for
once!" Sometimes we have customers who are so pleased with the
accommodations that on a repeat trip they bring us a little gift. The
most valuable--and most annoying--of these gifts was a half dozen baby
chickens, which were presented to David. Grant fixed a small,
inconspicuous yard for them behind the single cabins, but they
developed a sly technique for getting out when they were hungry. Since
they were supposed to be David's responsibility, and since he is a
typical forgetful boy, they were frequently hungry. Often when I showed
a prospective customer cabin 7, which was the closest cabin to their
yard, the chickens would appear suddenly, to perch on the threshhold
and watch me with ravenous, reproachful eyes. It lent a very quaint and
rural aspect to the proceedings.
The excuses people use for getting away without renting a cabin may not
be rural, but they certainly are quaint. It seems to be almost
impossible for most people to refuse frankly to rent a cabin, to admit
outright that the cabin isn't suitable or that the price is too high.
Most people seem to feel that they must offer some logical excuse to
get away--and that then, once they have escaped, they needn't return.
Typical excuses are that they "have to run to the other end of town a
minute first, and will be right back" or that they'll "grab a bite at a
restaurant and come back to sign up inside half an hour."
After one trip to a Banning department store where I tried many little
coats, all too expensive, on Donna, I found myself making excuses to
the attentive salesgirl. "I'll go home and think about it," I said,
"and I might come back and buy one." Of course, I knew perfectly well
that I wasn't going to buy one of the coats at those prices. I tried to
analyze my own reasoning in making the excuse, so I would understand
what motivated the customers who fished up frantic excuses so that they
could get away.
They must feel guilty, I decided, for using so much of my time and
courtesy without repaying me for it; they want to justify themselves in
my sight, even if falsely and temporarily, by leaving me under the
impression that my trouble will be repayed when they return from "the
other end of town" or from "grabbing a bite in a restaurant." They'd be
embarrassed if they knew how clearly I understood that they had no
intention of returning--as embarrassed as I was when, after thinking it
over, I realized that the clerk in the department store knew perfectly
well that I had no intention of coming back after "going home to think
about it," and that I was just easing myself out gracefully, trying to
keep her from thinking I was the ungrateful wretch I actually felt
myself to be.
Banning, on the whole a sane and level-headed little town, isn't
without its cult members and its intense haranguers about "vibrations."
The vibrations were, no doubt, very strong in these dabblers in
pseudo-metaphysics when the members of the Los Angeles Temple of Yahweh
bought about nine hundred acres in the desert east of Banning,
announcing that they would build there a settlement to be known as
Yahweh Springs. Spokesmen for the sect revealed, for the edification of
Banningites, that Los Angeles would be blown up by an atomic bomb in
the near future, and members of the sect were taking advantage of their
special knowledge to build a refuge in the desert.
On a trip to Banning's well-stocked library, I was searching the
Encyclopedia Britannica for "Mother Carey's Chickens," in order to use
correctly a reference to them in a farcical story I planned to write
about a sea voyage. Whenever I look up a certain thing in a reference
book I am compelled, by the intriguing lure of the other words in big,
bold-face capitals, to waste time and energy studying the details of
five or six subjects which bear no relation to the subject I'm looking
up except in that they start with the same letters. My eye being caught
by "motet" (which is, I learned against my will, vocal music in the
contrapuntal style) it occurred to me that it would be interesting to
look up "motel," since I must be in the immediate vicinity of the word.
To my surprise, "motel" wasn't listed in the Britannica. Piqued, I
searched in several other encyclopedias and reference books for
"motel," and finally even for the more lowly terms "auto court" and
"tourist camp." Not even those words were mentioned. Finally, in
desperation, I tackled the huge unabridged dictionary, with the same
result. Compilers of the dictionary had not allowed the word "motel" to
sully its sacred pages.
Obviously, according to authorities, there is no such thing as a motel.
However, I feel that I can with safety state that the authorities are
all wet.
One day Grant came home for dinner after one of his two-hour talk fests.
"I thought I'd run up once and see Mr. Bradley," he said, sitting down
at the table. "I wanted to talk over some business with him, about the
motel association, but he was too upset to even think about that."