I was going to name this particular motel in Gallup, NM, but I looked it up online and it seems that massive improvements have been made to it since the time of my adventures there some 20 years ago, so let's just call it "A Bit O' Calcutta," in deference to the manager or owner or whoever the guy running it was. . It was a rundown little motel on the outskirts of Gallup. The heavy scent of curry wafted across the parking lot like Mumbai at high tide—with chutney. The room was impossibly cheap, even by 1999 standards—something like $15 a night for two people. That should have been the tipoff. But it was late, my partner and I had driven nonstop nearly 1,000 miles from Houston, en route to our home in Southern California, and all we wanted was sleep.

We took note of the fact that there was a two-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor, but it was a warm night and, hey, we were roughing it. The wind that blew in under the door was actually sort of refreshing. Oh yeah, and there were no drinking glasses, just a couple of paper cups. And the antique TV set didn't work at all. But then for $15, what do you want, HBO?

The trouble began at around 10:30 pm. I was lying in bed, reading, and Rick was lying next to me, trying to sleep. It was quiet. So quiet that you could hear—crunching. Coming from WITHIN the bed. I bent down to see what was causing it. As I did this, a little gray mouse dashed from the box spring and fled through the gap in the door.

Okay, the mouse is gone. Go back to sleep, Rick. I'm just going to read a little more.

Crunch crunch.

Second verse same as the first. I look under the bed, mousie gets startled and flees the room. I'm starting to feel like I'm in a Warner Bros. cartoon. Rick is now starting to get pissed. He grabs a handful of sunflower seeds (his addiction to sunflower seeds is the one thing that gets on my last nerve) and throws them under the bed, saying, "choke on these, fucker!"

And surprise—all was quiet. No more bed chewing. And in the morning, there was not a single sunflower seed to be found. I guess the little bastard had spent the night carrying them to his/her home.

As we were going to our car, we saw a scorpion scuttling across the parking lot, and were very glad that it hadn't crawled under the door to visit us in the middle of the night.

Do watch out for New Mexico. It's the Australia of the Southwest.