Boy and Girl get married but don’t have a ton of money for a honeymoon. So Boy and Girl decide to drive from a Great Lake to an ocean Atlantic. They stay at the only bed & breakfast on the entire Ocean City boardwalk. (Maryland, that is.) It’s a tiny little thing compared to the newer structures that surround it. Boy and Girl are given a room upstairs where they’ll stay the whole week. The beach is right there. Boy and girl spend some time on it. They get the photo souvenirs for evidence. Mid-week, they return from a day of fun, sand and sun and prepare for dinner.
“Do you smell that?”
“What?”
“It smells like a camp fire. But I can’t see anything.”
Boy tries to peak his head out of the window but the screen’s sealed shut. He’s a little perplexed when a rap comes on the door. Boy opens the door to the frantic inn owner, she’s clutching a cordless telephone.
“There’s a fire in the basement. You need to evacuate right now!”
Boy and Girl had just been in the basement, returning folding beach chairs they had borrowed. It wasn’t on fire when they left. So Boy yells to Girl to get out of the shower because the building is on fire. Girl doesn’t argue and they both grab what they can:
Enough to be fully clothed.
The camera bag.
Girl’s purse.
By the time they exit the room, smoke is already billowing out of the floor vents in the bathroom.
Boy and Girl watch from an elevated staircase next door as firefighters go to work. All the while, the 1998 Chevy Malibu belonging to Boy and Girl is pinned between the building on fire and the trucks needed to extinguish said fire.
The flames are kept from leaving the basement. The smoke has better luck. Eventually they let Boy and Girl back in to grab the rest of their smoke-drenched belongings. Another hotel proprietor offers a free room to Boy and Girl who are just glad to able to continue their honeymoon. Then they see the hole in the comforter and realize this is where they tape shows like Girls Gone Wild.
Walking away from Hotel Hanky Panky, Boy and Girl are feeling a little low. Girl looks to Boy and he says something reassuring. They continue down the boardwalk toward one of the larger hotels, The Commander. At the lobby desk they are greeted warmly and are checked into a room. This place will do for what remains of the week. It’s on the ocean and on the nicer side of life. Before showing Boy and Girl to their room, the counter clerks have a question.
“Were you in that fire?”
“Yes, how do you know?”
“We smelled you as soon as you entered.”
Boy and Girl only stay in this room one night. Their luggage stinks it up and they request a new room. They do drink the complimentary bottle of wine given by the front desk staff who feel badly for Boy and Girl. The next room is even nicer than the first. Boy and Girl spend more time on the beach and return to this room for a siesta one day. They catch a few minutes of shuteye before the uncanny and unmistakable song of the fire alarm begins to belt.
Boy and Girl are flabbergasted.
“We’ve been followed.”
Being professionals now, they make the lobby in good time to discover it’s a false alarm.
Boy and Girl’s honeymoon concludes without further incident. The Malibu provides them safe passage back to freshwater.
(15 years have passed for Boy and Girl. No other fires have threatened. Except for that one in the stove.)
