Day 59: Deadlines and Supercans

I'm still in Cold Lake, juggling three deadlines and my new neighbours who sit in their room smoking and swearing – with their door open – all the live long day.

When making my slightly-arbitrary-but-relatively-well-thought-out first draft deadline I didn't consider two other deadlines: the grant I'm applying for and the CBC Literary Awards, which all of us Banff-people kind of agreed to enter.

And it's a seven-hour drive home from Cold Lake, which we may be doing today or tomorrow. So things are a little hectic. One must prioritize.

Back to the major breach in hotel etiquette happening across the hall. This flop house posing as a hotel has been a bit of a trial from the get-go. While providing hours of entertainment in the form of midnight arrests and Northern Alberta prostitutes, the general crappiness of this place is getting a little old.

The "gym" is a sad, stained room full of yesterday's fitness novelties such as the Nordic Track and Bowflex, all of which are broken. With the exception of an exercise bike equipped with strange handles that pump back and forth as you pedal, forcing you into an embarrassing and unwanted upper body workout. I shudder to think what is soaked into the scummy shag carpet – underneath the turd-like clods of dirt. Also, it smells disconcertingly of smoke.

The whole joint smells like smoke, actually. The front desk staff try to beat back the reek of cigarettes with an eye-watering "aromatherapy" candle whose flavour must be Noxious Cheap Perfume. This, when blended with the smoke, creates the pervasive scent of Floozie. Appropriate, I think.

But these new neighbours take the frickin' cake. As far as I can tell, all this couple does is sit in their room drinking Supercans, chainsmoking Du Maurier Kings and nattering at each other. They keep their door open so they don't suffocate – sharing their admirable lifestyle choices with the rest of us.

They talk so loudly, Boyfriend resorted to ear plugs in order to get any work done. "Why not ask them to shut the door?" you might ask. Because we are non-confrontational morons, that's why. It's pathetic, but we let these yahoos fill our lives with second-hand smoke and terrible grammar all day long.

Ruining our chances of winning the 2008 Martyr Of The Year award, one of Boyfriend's crew mates decided to help us out. The five-foot-nothing 18-year-old scrapper stomped down the hall and slammed their door shut on our behalf. This passive-aggressive approach led to an awkward hallway confrontation and The Trailer Park People calling the front desk to complain.

Let's review: they bitched about someone closing their door, while we got lung cancer and had foam nubbins hanging out our ears for a day and a half.