Comicon Part !!

So there we were, Peter and I, two first-time Comiconners, stranded in downtown San Diego at 2:30 in the morning, strangers in the town with no place to stay and no way to leave. What had started as a post-college romp through the hallowed halls of popular culture had come with the dire, unexpected consequence of spending a night on the street, like weak-stomached, geeky bums!
Now admittedly, if there are few places more pleasant to be homeless than San Diego, which is clean, well-lit, and even in the wee hours of the morning, surprisingly pleasant and warm. We couldn’t find a beach to sleep on, and the idea of wandering around a 24 hour supermarket seemed unbearably horrible for all parties involved, including the supermarket, which would probably be victim to any antics we might come up with while fighting off exhaustion, and I’ve broken one to many glass salsa jars while trying to juggle in a Ralph’s already. We didn’t have much of a clue, but there was a nice hotel across the street from the convention, and I was tired of carrying my backpack and bags full of comics and free stuff around all day, so I suggested we see if we could bum around their lobby or find a corner somewhere to hideout for a while.
The place was basically deserted, except for a few other refugees from the Comicon who were hanging around chatting at tables outside. I tried to think of a way to ask them if we could stay in their hotel room without sounding creepy or desperate, but failed.
Instead we rode the elevators for a while, stopping on a couple of floors and checking out all the unlocked doors we could find that didn’t lead to guest rooms. We couldn’t very well sleep in a service area, and the ice rooms were a bit small. There were no couches or chairs in the hallways either. It looked dire.
Fortunately, I don’t think I ever went to an Honors Conference in college where I didn’t spent a few hours exploring the convention hotel. Through the years, I’ve discovered a few trends, which may have saved our lives that night:
1. The conference rooms, ballrooms, and other assorted, meeting rooms are usually on the lowest floor before the guest rooms start.
2. These rooms are always deserted at night, except for occasional hypothetical janitors.
3. There’s usually a way to get into them.
These principles held up in the San Diego hotel, and soon we found ourselves in one of about a dozen large ballrooms, although because it was more secure than I’m used to, we had to sneak through an empty service hallway/kitchen in order to do so. There were plenty of chairs and long tables with floor length skirts in the ballroom, and while the chairs just got in the way, the tables were perfect to sleep under.
Something like this had been my plan all along.
It was crazy enough that it just might work. But DID IT??????

Part Three in this now rather ridiculously drawn-out adventure coming tomorrow since I have to go to bed!!!!!