Here's the thing -- all of this fancying-up is unnecessary. There's not a single person on this planet who checks into a $50 motel room expecting to be blown away by the experience. Blown during the experience, sure, but a cheap motel is not the place to expect awesome otherwise. Things like "hardwood floors" are not the domain of the Motel 6s and Super 8s of the world. That's like Domino's branching out into steak and lobster. It might be on the menu and look delicious in the commercials, but if you're paying $8.99 for it, you know they're going to fuck it up somehow.
So while you may initially be surprised to see a hardwood floor at a cheap motel when researching your lodging options online, you should be way less surprised when you get there and realize that "hardwood floor" is basically a series of well-placed stickers that happen to have a wood-like pattern on them.
Stuff like this should be avoided also:
![5 Signs of a Crappy Motel They Never Show in the Pictures]()
This meaning what, exactly?
That's the absurd art deco towel rack that was hung in the otherwise very cheap motel-like bathroom, and it's exactly the kind of shit I don't need in a place like that. For one thing, it looks like I should be reaching into one of those holes to pull out the folded piece of paper that tells me what denomination of bill Bob Barker is going to make me creepily remove from his pocket as if he doesn't have hands and didn't die far too long ago for that joke to work. (Author's note: Turns out Bob Barker is still alive. That said, he'll always be dead to me, so the joke stays.)
The real problem, though, is that it does nothing to alleviate the traditional shortcomings that are inherent to every shitty motel. Yes, the towel rack is quirky, but what good is quirkiness if you still feel the ever-present threat of strong arm robbery when you visit the lobby late at night? Skip the fancy towel racks and put a vending machine on every floor so I don't have to take those kinds of risks, shitty motels of America.
Adam hosts a podcast called Unpopular Opinion that you should check out right here. You should also be his friend on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.