I stayed in a hostel in Paris for a few nights. On the day that I arrived, I checked in and paid for my stay, and was assigned to bed 3 in a 14-bed dorm. I was given sheets, so I made my bed and headed off to meet some friends.
When I returned past 1 in the morning, exhausted and ready to crash, I entered the dark, silent room and found a girl in my bed. She was on her phone, so I told her that that was my bed. She assured me that it was hers and suggested that perhaps I had the wrong room.
“Room 4, bed 3?” I said.
“Huh. But they gave us these beds,” her friend in the upper bunk chimed in. “Beds 3 and 4.”
I showed her my key card with my bed and room number.
“I believe you,” she said. “But these were the beds they gave us.”
“Was the bed made, when you arrived?” I asked the girl.
“No,” she said with a small smile.
Resigned, I went back down to the reception desk and explained my situation.
“Bed 3,” said the man at the desk. “Are you Elizabeth?”
“No,” I said. I gave him my name.
“But you haven’t checked in?” he asked.
“No, I have.”
“But you didn’t pay?”
“I did.”
He went through the book of receipts and eventually found mine. He assigned me bed 13, gave me new sheets and exchanged my key card, and I returned upstairs.
Making my new bed in the dark, I discovered that I was missing my blanket. The person in the bunk beneath mine seemed to have appropriated it, presumably having assumed that no one would be taking that bunk that night.
I went back to the reception desk and was informed that there were no extra blankets.
Returning to the room, I turned on the reading light on the bunk and started making the bed, postponing the inevitable waking of the person in the lower bunk. In my irritation, however, I wasn’t as quiet as I could have been while making my bed. Just as I was finishing fitting the sheet on the mattress, an arm emerged from below, offering me a handful of the blanket.
With a “Merci,” I took the blanket and curled up. Just as I was getting ready to sleep, another small commotion began on the opposite corner of the room. It was past 4 by the time I got to sleep.