The drunks make the night shift interesting. After midnight, the business travelers are either in their beds or typing that last furious email to the home office. The families have long since collapsed into the exhausted stupor that follows a full day of “Are we there yet?”. Even the sounds of the highway outside are shushed by the low hum of the lobby air conditioner. If it weren’t for the drunks, I’d probably put my head down on the desk and try to catch some z’s myself. But the drunks make it interesting.

Because, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, every drunk is drunk in their own way. I like to play a guessing game with the angry ones. Who are they pissed at? Who are they really pissed at? What will they do before I have to call the police? And will they be drunk enough to stick around until the cops arrive?

The merry drunks are completely unpredictable, but always in an amusing way. I’ve joined in on boisterous off-key renditions of college fight songs. I’ve watched two fifty-something men play hide and seek around the lobby furniture. One evening I even helped a guest haul fifty pounds of peanut butter down to his room while listening to him expound on the merits of apple jelly instead of strawberry jam. The only problem merry drunks have ever given me is when they pass out before making it those last few feet to their room.

But for a guy like me, the amorous drunks are what make the night shift worth its weight in gold. We’re just a medium-sized motel that caters to travelers, so we rarely get any planned romantic evenings. However, we are close enough to two bars to get the ‘romantic for tonight’ traffic after the alcohol has long since chased prudence away.

Beer goggles on others are a glorious thing.

I often wonder what they say to each other in the morning. The couples generally stumble in together. He’s usually talking like a movie star with a touch of bravado in his voice. She’ll laugh at even his dumbest jokes, and they’ll stand all too close together. As if it’d all be over if either of them had a chance to breathe the fresh night air. They touch or cuddle a bit as I run his credit card and then snatch the key card out of my hand as though it might melt if I held it too long. But in the morning, all I see is him—throwing the key on the desk and slinking out into the glare of the rising sun.

And while they grope and roll and thrust in the privacy of their room, I sit at the front desk and make up stories about who they are and what they most certainly would do.

They don’t always make it to their rooms. I put up a “back in five minutes” sign several times a shift, forward the desk phone to my cell, and make the rounds. If I find a couple going at it in the hall, I politely urge them toward their correct destination. They’re always embarrassed and quick to comply. If I find them other places... it depends.

I caught The Cowboy and The Dirty Blonde in the parking lot.

I knew they had to be drunks when the pickup careened past the hotel entrance without stopping. After ten minutes ticked by, I put up the sign, forwarded the desk phone, and ambled outside.

The truck sprawled across two slots at the far end of the lot under one of the security lights. Fortunate for me. Not so for their privacy. The shadows cloaked my approach to a mere twenty yards away.

At first, there was nothing to observe. He sat in the driver’s seat, head thrown back, eyes closed, cowboy hat scrunched against the back window. She was nowhere to be seen until she rose up from his lap long enough to pull her hair out of the way before disappearing again.

The Cowboy moaned, and then moaned again. The sporadic traffic noise just punctuated his gasps of pleasure. He hung his arm out the window, his left hand clawing for something to grip. His jaw clenched, as did my own in sympathetic desire.

“No... no...,” he moaned and shook his head. He shuddered and I could almost sense the sweat on his forehead.

A moment later her head popped up again. She launched herself into his arms with a ferocious kiss.

I couldn’t help smiling as the truck rocked under their frenzied groping. He pulled a spaghetti strap on her top aside and down. Her braless breast bounced free, but only for a moment before he captured it in his hand and squeezed. Hard. She didn’t seem to care. Her hair fell forward and obscured their faces held so close together.

“Ow!” Her elbow had connected with the steering wheel.