We Were Marks

Observation

My cousin and I drove 4½ hours to Montrose, Colorado, to fish the Gunnison River. We had debated whether to camp or stay in a hotel the first night. Since I was already dreading two nights without a mattress, I said I’d cover a motel the first night.

First, I found a Marriott property. Too expensive. Then a Holiday Inn. Too expensive. Then a Super 8 – I am not Jeff Bezos... Still too expensive. Then, like a shining beacon floating to the top of my Booking.com page, I saw it.

The Red Feather Inn.

We arrive at 11:30 p.m., tired from the long drive. Our room is in Section C, an isolated white block of a building that looks less like a motel and more like minimum-security housing. Dark. Rundown. Nearly vacant. As I park my Telluride, we notice three men sitting silently in a red Dodge Ram. They are just sitting there. They aren’t moving, aren’t unpacking. Nothing. They are just staring at the motel.

The parking lot feels dangerous. Dimly lit, beat-up cars, and an odd number of people just milling about. We pull into an open spot and grab our backpacks and, because we think it will be more secure, our expensive fly-fishing gear. Then we walk toward the entrance.

As we near the front doors, we walk past a woman who looks like an extra from The Walking Dead. Mid-40s, disheveled, worn down. She isn’t standing up straight and seems unsteady when she walks. She smiles as we pass, but seems unsettled. Why is she there?

The inside of the motel smells like bleach. The hallway carpets look like they’ve survived multiple floods. The walls are scuffed. The hallway is narrow, with flickering lights. Think The Shining, without all the charm. As we get to the room, number 224 C, it gets worse.

The lights don’t work, except in the bathroom. The television is dead. The outlets are loose and can’t hold a plug. My cousin tries to bolt the door, but the lock won’t hold. We see that the frame has been shattered and repaired so many times it looks like a middle-school woodworking project. Different screws. Different sizes. Different colors. The deadbolt cannot catch the frame.

Clearly, bad things have happened in that room. Repeatedly. Looking back out the window, we can still see the truck and the three men. And that woman walking around.

My cousin looks at me. “What if we’ve been marked?”

Psychology

One of the most powerful ideas in psychology is that we don’t respond to reality alone. Instead, we respond to the story our mind constructs about reality. Our experiences run through a filter of our emotions, our history, and our meaning-making systems. This is why two people can live through the exact same event and leave with entirely different experiences.

Objectively: We stayed in an old motel with poor maintenance.

Subjectively: I convinced myself those men and that woman were working together. My brain built the rest of the story. The men were waiting in the truck while the woman watched which rooms unsuspecting travelers were assigned. She was there to size us up, and they were there to take what they could. Once we fell asleep, the room was theirs.

That night, I slept lightly, with my knife out of its sheath on the nightstand.

In Practice

For better or worse, the stories you tell yourself shape your reality.

When you wonder about your circumstances, ask yourself two questions: 1) What do I know? 2) What story am I adding?

You don’t need to ignore your intuition. Intuition is subconscious pattern recognition. But before you draw conclusions, make sure you’re separating observations from interpretations.

It’s a crucial skill whether you’re evaluating a motel, your career, or your relationships.