In a moment of veteran-like panic I had a flashback to one year ago when a clogged water main broke and my upstairs neighbors failed to realize that their toilet was flushing into my WC. When I went up to tell them, the wife said, “We don’t have a problem,” and the husband said, “See, ” pulling the chain before I could stop him.

I sat up in my moment of panic… and realized that I wasn’t at home but in a hotel room. I was staying in a cozy little family-run hotel in a peaceable village near the D-Day Landing Beaches in Normandy. The water, I saw, was entering through the lintel above the bathroom door, undoubtedly from the shower of the traveler upstairs.

I checked to see that my bag, clothes, and shoes were safe and dry. They were, and so was the bed.

I nodded off to the sound of a slowing drizzle, another hour’s sleep before meeting with travelers to tell them war stories.

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