Greetings from Room 206 of the Rodeway Inn in Revere, MA. It’s just outside Logan Airport in Boston, so we’ll just call it Boston, shall we?

I’m here because I screwed up my flight reservations in and out of Manchester. I had originally booked travel on Orbitz in and out of the Manchester airport, with a Friday night departure, but I somehow skipped the “confirm reservations” step of the process, which meant that when I final-checked my itinerary just a few days before leaving, I realized that in fact I had no tickets. At all.

Problem.

So I had to book the cheapest flight I could find, which meant flying in and out of Boston and driving to/from Manchester. And it also meant flying out Saturday morning, rather than Friday night. So I’m staying in the cheapest hotel I could find near the airport and, well, you get what you pay for.

Dinner tonight was a can of honey-roasted peanuts and a Diet Pepsi because I turned in my rental car already and the only thing even resembling a restaurant near my hotel is a liquor store two blocks away, where all they sell is soda, beer, wine, champagne, hard liquors, and honey-roasted peanuts. When I was checking out, the 20-something hottie check-out girl cracked a joke about me having a slow Friday night. My snappy comeback was … nothing. What could I say? She nailed it.

Here’s the room:

And here’s the view:

And here’s me resolving to stay in a real hotel on my next trip. These last two places have shown me that I’m a spoiled business traveler — I have certain expectations that a cheapo tourist joint can’t meet. You get what you pay for.