And This Is How I Accidentally Slept With A Naked Homeless Guy On Drugs

**If the photos appear fuzzy, viewing on your mobile device's desktop version clears them up**

If only we had known what was hiding under the lights, of The Ellison Suites Hotel, maybe none of this would have happened.

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Have you ever had something happen in your life, that is just so far out of the "normal" category, that it doesn't even seem real?

I'm speechless, and that's really saying something, if you know me.

In fact when it was happening, I kept saying how this was going to be the best blog ever, but now that I'm trying to actually write about it... I've been staring at my computer for the past three days and the only words that keep coming to my mind are "What. The. F."

Since I don't even know where to start, I guess I'll start back at the beginning, when Mr. Attorney Man and I had to fly to LA for some business. I had a few meetings to attend that he didn't need to be at, so for the first few days, we spent much of our time apart. But, because his (super fun) wife had traveled with him, we decided to check out of the swanky hotel I had stayed at for my meetings, and stay an extra day in a hotel that Mr. Attorney Man had found, by the beach.

A hotel that I looked up online, and promptly decided I wasn't staying in. 

"Um, this place looks scary" I hinted.

"I'm sure it's fine, and it's cheaper than all the other places" he assured me. And although I didn't believe him, I was making an effort to remember that I am not always the most fun person to travel with, since my Uptight-Planner-Bossy-Bitchy side comes to the surface when I'm feeling uncomfortable being out of my daily routine.

#IJustLikeThingsToWorkOut

#ButIWasTryingToBeNice

#Regrets

He reminded me that we wouldn't be there long, and it was close to the airport.

Not feeling very satisfied with that answer, I turned to the next set of ears that might listen to me. "It looks haunted!" I whined to my husband. "It looks exactly like the set of every scary movie I have ever seen in my life, and I don't want to go!"

He laughed at me and pulled the laptop over to look for himself. "The Ellison Suites were built in 1913, and later, were renovated into apartments" he read aloud while scrolling through the pictures. "Well, I mean yea they look old, but I'm sure Mr. Attorney Man wouldn't take you anywhere unsafe," he assured me.

"THAT IS OLD!" I exclaimed rather dramatically. "That means every person who originally stayed there, is now dead! And I won't be safe! Because Mr Attorney Man and his wife will be snuggled up in some place that probably has charm when you stay with someone else, and I'll be left alone to build the salt circle around my bed!"

He laughed at me.

I glared at him.

And a few days later, I was on a plane to LA.

The Grand Canyon

You guys, I had fears. I had ALL the fears. Not only had I never left the kids before, but I was also taking a different flight, out of a different airport than Mr. Attorney Man and his wife were. Which means that I, a person who doesn't drive on the highway, has horrific luck with public transportation, and gets lost on my way to the mailbox, was flying across the country, completely alone.

ALL THE FEARS.

Some of which, I had discussed with Mr. Attorney Man prior to the trip.

Thankfully when I landed, Mr. Attorney Man and his wife (who I will now refer to as His Better Half), were waiting for me. 

Waiting, that is, to stuff me into the back of a shiny red convertible, where I had to face my highway fears, in LA traffic, in half a car, while I am sure that I acquired about 17 different forms of skin cancer from incinerating in the California sun.

I really am a disabling level of Caucasian, and it was then that I decided that I was not meant for LA; 12 minutes after leaving the airport.

The two of them were in the front seat, Mr. Attorney Man wearing a backwards hat, grinning from ear to ear, listening to his California playlist, and I was in the backseat trying not to be strangled by my own hair and bracing myself for the moment a large rock would fall off one of those scenic mountains and end me.

There were signs, people. Actual signs staked up and down the roads, alerting me to the fact that this might actually happen.

ALL OF THE FEARS.

Arriving at the hotel, and checking into my room, I was greeted by some flowers my husband had sent, congratulating me on making it there alive.

After breaking them out of the packaging with nail clippers, and then putting them in the ice bucket, I found Mr. Attorney Man and His Better Half perched on some cushy chairs at the bar, where I collapsed into one next to them; Just in time to join in on the conversation about how we could smell the California fires burning down everything around us.

Oh yay. I was really hoping that we would be super close to a life hazard, and now here we were.

LUCKY US.

In thinking of that, I remembered the haunted hotel that we were supposed to check into a couple days later, and started to wonder if His Better Half had even seen it; mostly because I couldn't imagine that if she had seen it, she would let us stay there.

"Hey, uh... so are you ready to go stay at a haunted hotel?" I asked her, praying really hard that she would respond "NO! LET'S STAY SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

But she didn't. 

Instead, she admitted that she hadn't even looked at it, because Mr. Attorney Man is the trip planner. A trip planner, who then leaned over from his spot at the bar, and admitted that he hadn't even looked at it, because he'd selected it off the recommendation of a friend. A friend we later found out, had simply chosen it off of it's location on a map.

Can you see where this is going?

ALL OF THE FEARS.

And that, is how, after we googled to make sure that it wasn't really haunted (we didn't find any reports), we found ourselves standing outside The Ellison Suites, realizing that ghosts were actually the least of our problems.

"Uh... let's just go inside and see what it looks like" was the only thing Mr. Attorney Man could say when we pulled up to a building that was everything I had feared it would be... and then actually, much worse.

His Better Half and I shot each other a look, where she sent the message "I have made a terrible, terrible mistake," with her eyes.

At least I'm pretty sure that's what it meant.

Anyway, driving up and down the block and not seeing any sign of a place to park — or even the front door of the hotel — we tried to call the front desk, and promptly learned that none of us had cell service.

Eventually we parked in someone's driveway, and made our way through the front gate to the hotel.

"So, this seems like the worst idea ever" I said as we climbed the stairs to The Ellison Suites front desk. "We are going into this old place, with no cell service, where we will probably get trapped and die."

But did anyone hear me?

Of course not, because I was now playing the role of the lowly friend, who in every scary movie I have ever seen, walks behind the group of people who are going into some rundown ancient building, and constantly reminds them of why it's a bad idea to be doing it without a line to the outside world.

The friend who when no one listens, goes into the basement with them anyway.

You know, the person who always gets killed first.

"Hey, where do we park?" was the first thing that Mr. Attorney Man asked the clerk when we arrived at the front desk. "Oh, don't you worry about that" the clerk said through a glorious accent and much too much enthusiasm. "Let's just get you checked in first, and then I will explain to you, how to park" he beamed.

"Yea but I don't want to get towed" Mr. Attorney Man said, before the clerk once again told him not to worry about that.

"Well I'm worried," His Better Half chimed in. "It's a rental and" then the clerk cut her off, this time a bit more firmly, with "I do this everyday, and I will explain it all after we get you checked in." 

Eager to get the car moved, we handed over our credit cards, signed the hotel agreement, and then were promptly told that the parking situation, was that there was no parking.

**Cough**  **Cough**  **Scam**

"I guess I'll go find a parking lot somewhere" Mr. Attorney Man said before leaving His Better Half and I to find our rooms. Or rather, my room, since getting the door open to their room proved to be impossible. 

Stepping into the elevator, we were immediately greeted with pictures of... what is this? A serial killer?

Hell if I know. Seems fitting.

"You have got to be kidding me" I said to her as the elevator doors opened and we could see the view. 

"I'm not staying here" she said in response.

Looking at the rows of apartments stacked on top of each other, connected by fire escapes that I'm sure have claimed a few lives, clothes and towels drying over the railings, bicycles strewn about, and everything covered in peeling paint and dirt, you could easily envision what it had looked like in the early 1900's as women in aprons tended to their hungry, depression era families.

Finding our room and stepping inside, we were left speechless, until His Better Half uttered "this has got to be a joke."

I can't even describe what we saw. It was about 95 degrees, and the windows were propped open by box fans. Not window air conditioner units, but actual fans. The entire place smelled of the 1900's and weed, and the furniture looked like it had all been purchased from Ikea, and then placed in ways that they hoped would keep us from noticing everything else that was going on. And by that, I mean the pipes that were fitted with pool noodles and signs that said "Hot! Do not touch!" The shattered kitchen tile counter tops, and a TV that hung in a way that made absolutely no sense for viewing it, unless you were standing against the wall.

We laughed, we giggled, and then we opened the bathroom door and shrieked in hysterics. There were stairs leading up to the bathroom, and it was designed that way, because the bed pulled out from underneath the bathtub. 

A bathroom trundle bed, or as we began calling it after His Better Half got in it and closed herself up into the floor, a "hide-a-friend" bed. 

What had initially caught us off guard, was now simply funny as hell. Why would anyone think that anyone would be OK with this? It was so absurd, that it couldn't possibly be anything other than funny. We then threw ourselves down onto the other bed, and laughed even harder when we realized that instead of a mattress, we were laying on what can only be described as feeling like patio furniture cushions, under a sheet.

By the time Mr. Attorney Man got back to the room, I had laugh-cried all my makeup off.

Then we went to check out their room, which to my amusement, was entirely decorated in Jim Morrison gear.

The book on the shelf that His Better Half found, seemed rather fitting...

Laughing once again, I opened a doorway while still looking at His Better Half, and promptly tripped and fell.

Injuries were sustained.

I mean why wouldn't a stairway be placed in the very center of the doorway? Why would it make sense to put the doorway anywhere else, other than in the middle of where the stairs start?

Agreeing that we couldn't stay there (mostly due to how hot it was), Mr. Attorney Man went down to the front desk to tell them that we'd like to check out. 

But checking out early, wasn't allowed. 

Apparently once you become a resident of The Ellison Suites, you are not allowed to leave early, unless you are prepared to pay a several hundred dollar fee.

Deciding that our only recourse would be to call Hotels.com, which we had booked through, we were reminded that the cement prison of The Ellison Suites, didn't have any cell service. It was then that the reality of where we were, began to really sink in, and I'm pretty sure we went through an actual grieving process. 

Shock, denial, anger, and now sadness.

Defeated and desperate to get out of there, we walked down to the beach, took one look around, and froze.

Apparently Venice Beach, is not where people go for a family fun beach experience. Maybe some parts are that we didn't see, but definitely, unfortunately, not the parts that we saw. And now cannot unsee.

It's where they go to get high, and join a homeless compound. Surrounded by nothing but drug addicts, panhandlers, homeless living encampments, and seemingly out of place touristy t-shirt shops as far as we could see, I was kicking myself for being so damn agreeable before the trip, when I knew that this was a bad idea.

Isn't it amazing, the moment when you suddenly realize how smart, and stupid, you are?

#IfOnlySomeoneHadSaidSomething

#ISaidSomething

#IWentAnyway

#Stupid

Finding a place where our phones worked, we called the booking company to let them that due to my health we couldn't stay in the overheated oven of a room, and asked if they could help us change hotels.

But we were told that since air conditioning wasn't listed in the amenities section, we were in the wrong. And so I turned to the only lifeline I had left, and called my husband crying, and begging him to get me a flight home asap. Any flight. A cargo flight. A stork. I didn't care. A reserved chair at the airport until morning. JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE.

But he couldn't, and so later that night, after walking back to the hotel, past the men's drug rehab facility that it is next to (oh yes it was!), past the men shoving-each-other-turned-fist-fight that had broken out in the street, past the barking unleashed dogs that were ready to defend, past the panhandlers that had signs reading "Don't Fucking Look At Me Just Give Me A Dollar" and "Too high to work, too honest to lie, and too lazy to be creative, give me money," past a guy crawling down the street while wearing a skull mask, we arrived back at the hotel. Where once inside, we then walked past all the residents who live there (oh yes, apparently The Ellison Suites has a large residential population, and I don't know, maybe just functions as a hotel that traps guests duped into staying there), past the fire escapes and graffiti that said "Muck Venice," and then we decided that the only way were were going to be able to return to our rooms, was if we weren't sober.

We got some cheap wine, cried our way down the rickety halls, and drank it out of the Jim Morrison cups that were in the room..

A room, in which if you close the windows, you might actually suffocate.

A room, in which if you leave the windows open, you might actually be killed.

It was decided that Mr. Attorney Man would sleep with Jim Morrison, and His Better Half and I would take the other room. We agreed to close one window and leave the other one open, and then I let her choose which bed she wanted; either the patio cushion bed by the window, or the hide-a-friend bed under the bathtub.

She chose the bathtub bed, because it had a real mattress, but once we were laying in our beds and she was left looking at the deep, black hole that her bed had slid out from — a hole that could suck her down to hell at any moment — she climbed into my bed.

Attempting to get comfortable on what felt like a bed made out of patio cushions, we snuggled with pillows that we had chilled in the refrigerator, and took note of every creak, every shadow, and every sound outside. And because we were already on edge, of course there was screaming. A type of screaming where whoever screamed first, would scare the other one into screaming twice as loud. Repeatedly.

This went on — the screaming and snuggling with frozen pillows — until a naked homeless man began climbing in and out of the dumpster next to our window, and we began jumping out of bed every 28 seconds, to make sure that he wasn't trying to get inside our room.

Because why wouldn't that happen.

Realizing that maybe he was making noise on purpose to draw us to the window so that he could more easily kill us, we agreed that we were clearly safer under the sheets, with a box fan between us and the naked, homeless, high guy.

It was just then that a text came in from Mr. Attorney Man saying "we are leaving in the morning," so I can only assume that he was equally unhappy, passing his time with good old Jim.

As for us, we spent the next several hours speculating as to why the fan cord was moving in a way that looked like someone was touching it (a ghost perhaps?), taking turns standing guard outside the bathroom door (there really could have been a ghost), and wondering why the people on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," didn't know they were pregnant. 

At some point close to 2 or 3 am, we fell asleep, and then woke up at 5am when my alarm went off, and we realized that we were both covered in a super attractive rash.

Ecstatic that I would be leaving for the airport soon, I took a shower in what I can only describe, as a sandwich bag.

Romantic my ass. Claw foot tubs seem very charming and adorable, until you see what they were actually like in the 1920's. Not only are they narrow (and sometimes on top of your friend's bed), but the shower curtain completely surrounds you, giving the impression that you are inside of a large Ziploc. A Ziploc that other strangers have been in before you, and possibly left behind pieces of themselves that might touch you, and I don't know, kill you. That is, if you aren't first killed by any number of scenarios that I've seen occur in claw foot tubs, in horror movies.

If only someone had mentioned how scary this place looked before we checked in...

IF ONLY.

I then grabbed my suitcase and made my way outside to a waiting cab, where two guys on scooters whistled, point at us, and began to make their way over before I jumped into the cab and she went back inside the hotel.

So really, yay LA.

And I think that His Better Half summed it up best when she said "well, what I have learned today, is that money means something."

Cheap is not always good.

Then I headed to the airport, where I was the second to last person to board a completely full flight, flew across the country between two sleeping people, and was picked up by a car service to take me home, while the driver repeatedly told me how beautiful I was, how lucky my husband was, how excited he was for his wife to have their baby, asked if he could spend some more time with me (wtf?), and then he got sick. 

In the car.

BECAUSE WHY WOULDN'T THAT HAPPEN.

Since I've been home, Mr. Attorney Man has sent several text messages, apologizing for the hotel stay, but I'm honestly not mad at him because he's dead to me he didn't actually do anything wrong. Things happen, and at the end of it all, at least I was able to leave LA with a few good memories...

...and this blog.

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Edited to add:

Ok, I'll admit, I'm SHOCKED. After five years of blogging about him, Mr. Attorney Man FINALLY let's me show his face in last night's blog, and no one says anything! I was sure someone would have noticed...

*This was not a sponsored post, but I wanted to disclose that Hotels.com did eventually make things right with us, so if you do need to book a hotel, I would highly recommend using them. Especially since The Ellison Suites still has our money, and we are now left fighting it out with the credit card company.