Tales from the Late Empire: No Rooms at the Inns on Eclipse Day Weekend

plus a story of Midwest Nice

Wickliffe Public Library, 50 hours before the total eclipse of the sun

This week, Murphy’s Law paid my household a prolonged visit. On April 1, April Fool’s Day, the 37th anniversary of the day I enlisted in the US Navy, I logged on to my Social Security account to set up my retirement, scheduled to begin August 1, 2024.

Just last February, I applied and was informed my earliest day to apply for my retirement benefits was on April 1, and the earliest date I could retire was the first of the month after my 66th birthday, so August 1. On April Fool’s day, it was suddenly 8 months after said birthday, or March 1, 2025. My first perfectly logical reaction was

So I made like Dubya and used the Google. First up, Forbes with an article on recalculating the retirement age. So. This was real. (Forbes lets you read 4 free articles a month. Generous, huh?)

Half a bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey and a night later, I went down to the basement where my home office is to find over 4 inches of standing water everywhere. The Wi-Fi modem fried, furnace out, fate of hot water heater, washer & dryer unknown.

So I called my homeowner’s insurance agent, who called the insurance company, who sent out disaster cleanup specialists, who got the water out, but thought there was a clog in the line, so I had to call a plumbing company on my own dollar(I’m not about to bore you with the details of an insurance contract, just trust me this part wasn’t covered).

And they came, native NE Ohioans by their accents. They worked solid for five hours and charged me for two. When the insurance adjustor arrived the next day, he made a big to-do about causes of the—not flooding—but water backup. If the problem was in the line on my property, insurance would pay for damages. If not, then it was the City of Euclid’s problem and I would be this cat.

After he left, the local plumbers went around to my neighbors and knocked on doors, asking if their basements had flooded. They didn’t have to do this. They also didn’t have to teach me how homeowner’s insurance works with relation to water damage, but they did. Why?

Because they are working class people in Ohio and so are my wife and I, that’s why. And because they’re Midwest Nice. Long may it live.

In any case, none of my neighbors’ basements flooded that night. Therefore, according to the plumbers, who’d seen this scenario at least hundreds of times each, the cause was not on the city’s side of the clogged pipe.

A few hours later, the insurance adjustor agreed.

The plumbers busted their asses, but were unable to break through the clog. A high pressure water jet blast was needed, but they couldn’t find the overgrown access to the main drain line they needed to do that, and I had to call the city.

Which I did, but got voice mail. I didn’t get a callback until yesterday, when I put on my best authoritarian, well-connected PMC Voice, left a message describing the property taxes paid for services thus far not rendered, that I worked for the County(hence the connections), and if I didn’t hear back from them ASAP, dark bureaucratic demons might be summoned to cause them distress.

Two minutes later, the phone rang and I talked to a very professional and friendly city supervisor(who turned out to be an acquaintance of one of my coworkers). Three hours later, she called me and told me the city had unclogged my drain and the water in the basement had gone down it.

While all this was going on, we also had to find a motel or hotel room. Our insurance pays for lodging when such little disasters happen to their clients, but they could find no rooms with kitchenettes. In fact, they could find no rooms at any of the inns anywhere near here.

Did I mention there’s a total eclipse of the sun coming here Monday afternoon? And the NCAA Women’s Final Four this weekend? And the Indians’ Guardians’ Opening Day during the eclipse? And that all nonemergency local government departments are closed for that day?

The insurance company had no lodging answers. Fortunately, my wife and I have lived on the edge of the ghetto for most of our lives, and we know how to use Google Maps, find hotels, pick up our phones and dial 9 or 10 digits.

My wife did this thing. We spent the night in a motel whose best days had passed by 1970. She drove me to work in the morning, drove back to the motel we’d booked through…today, no room for the eclipse…to shower, and no hot water.

Not only that, but the clearly cerebrally challenged minions of the motel had no idea how to fix it, and no inclination to give us a refund for money spent on overnights not yet slept. They will soon face insurance lawyers as punishment, which is the most evil thing this side of Gaza I can think of unleashing upon them.

Fortunately, the insurance company had already deposited funds into our account for lodging, so my wife found the last room available in a hotel even closer to home, and we can have it through the eclipse and then some. We’re staying there now, and it’s a much better place, but has no functioning Wi-Fi at the moment. It did function the first night we were there, as guests from all over the country arrived to check into their rooms.

The parking lot filled up with cars and trucks, with plates from Connecticut, Minnesota, California, Texas and more.

For the first time in many years, this hotel is full of people who can afford smart phones and laptops and gaming devices, but of course corporate went with the cheapest and most data-capped plan they could find. Or they’re too cheap to buy a good server. Or both.

Ain’t capitalism great?

Yah, it’s great all right. So great that when my wife picked me up from work in downtown Cleveland yesterday, we drove by sights I’ve never seen here before.

People living in tents, at least nine of which were clustered across the street from a police station, but the denizens who lurk therein are leaving the homeless alone, at least for now.

There, but for the grace of the gods, sheer luck, or the utter perversity of the Universe go I, I said to myself. Just ten years ago, if something like our Great Basement Inundation of 2024 had happened, that could very easily have been me, and worse my wife, in one of those tents.

In a few days, or maybe a couple of weeks depending on whether the furnace needs to be replaced or not, we will be back home. Out of a couple grand, which we were indeed lucky to have on hand, but home.

In the meantime, in order to write I have to find hot spots. It’s inconvenient, and I don’t like not being able to post as much as I’m accustomed, but this too shall pass. I feel lucky to have my heated hotel room with hot water and no Wi-Fi. I feel lucky my insurance will pick up that tab and the one for eating out all the damned time.

And I will feel lucky for all of my readers who will understand why I’m a little more silent than usual for awhile.

Thank you for reading, good day, and of course, good luck.

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