Bar(r)e Nekkid

I’ve been sorta in denial about this business trip. I booked it late enough that I got yelled at by Corporate for not booking at least 8 days in advance. So after rubbing elbows* on the plane with highly important people, I was even less skeptical about how much fun this trip was going to be. As my final flight is landing I pull out my itinerary again and this time look at the hotel page.

As I mentioned, I booked my travel myself. But other than the flight being into the right city and at times I prefer (given that I have to go at all) I didn’t really pay much attention to picking out the rental car or the hotel. I called the 2 hotels recommended by the client I’m visiting and found out they were booked, so I did a zip code search. But there were no hotels in the zip code my client is in, so I chose one about 10 miles from the office address. At this moment I notice I am staying in the town of Barre.

Barre? Like as in ‘Bare’ without the extra ‘R’? Is it worth examining my feelings to determine how I feel about a business trip to a town named after being nekkid? I am pro-nekkid, for sure, but haven’t I heard that one should “never mix business and pleasure”?

I get to Bar(r)e and take a right, as per my instructions, on what looks to be the only major street. I am feeling pretty good as I see this is N Main Street and my directions also say to find the hotel at 173 S Main Street. I see couples out strolling and eating ice cream cones. I glance at the clock on the car, but it confirms what I already know – it’s almost midnight. Then I wonder what time zone my car is from (since it clearly wasn’t cleaned on the inside – gross, gross, gross – they probably didn’t reset the clock). But my cell phone (which has decided to jump back in with the “in crowd” and auto-update it’s time zone when it changes on) says it’s 11:52pm as well.

Wait, what the? This is Washington Street! I was clearly on N Main Street and I didn’t make a turn. I wonder if I am going north instead of south.

I have no idea since it’s pitch black and I gather there are trees everywhere and no one believes in leaving store signs on or putting street lights on streets here. So I make a U-turn and drive all the way back to where I started and a little further. But that side of N Main Street has a different street name as well. So I stop at a gas station for directions. (Finally! Something open after midnight is this place!) I instantly love the woman cashier purely because she knows where the glorious Days Inn Barre is. Her directions are priceless and I think I love her even more:
- Go back the way you came
- At the statue of the naked man veer right (if you keep going straight you fall off Main Street)
- Go through 3 lights and up a hill
- When you run into a brick wall, turn right – that’s the Days Inn.

Check -– naked guy, uphill, brick wall, motel! How fitting that the town of Bar(r)e has a naked man statue for a landmark. (For the record I saw the statue, but didn’t realize it was nekkid until she pointed it out.)

I find the motel with no issues (really, how could I not with those directions?). But since I’ve had the audacity to arrive after 11pm at night, when clearly all good people are strolling around outside eating ice cream, my room keys are taped to the office door. Holy Moley! In any other place I’ve been I think there’d be either
.....(a) a serial killer in my room
.....(b) a dead body in my room
.....(c) cameras hidden in my room
Or at least
.....(d) a party in my room
by now. I am vaguely amazed to find none of these, but to be honest, I didn’t even check for (c) so if you see nekkid pix of me on the web that’s where they come from.

Today as I was leaving the office, I asked my client, “So how do you say this?” and show them the name of the town.

“Bear-ee.”

As in White? Manilow? Rasp-? That pronunciation never even occurred to me. I am sure this says something embarrassing about my psyche…sigh.


* Why do I never get seated next to women? Why is it that the men I seem to sit next to assume that because their shoulders are broader they have the rights to the armrests? Why did I not remember that I find it creepy when the shirt of the random guy next to me tickles my arm? Why did I not wear long sleeves? Why am I so grumpy?