I think computers and less attentive clerks cause these issues.

My one good hotel story involves a guy trying to get in my room's window at a Houston motel.

I had only a S&W M-29 at hand, a 6.5-inch barrelled example with smooth rosewood grips, made about 1960. Beautiful gun, extremely accurate. I had taken it along because I wanted to show this gun to a friend in Houston.

I wondered how bad the blast would be if I had to fire that .44 Magnum indoors. It was loaded with Remington 240 grain softpoints.

I wanted to let the creep enter the window before challenging, so it'd be a good shooting, if need be. Might not let him in the room, but I wanted the window pried open and him in it.

This was about 2:00 or 3:00 AM, BTW.

About this time, a woman came along and started yelling at the man at the window. Turned out she was his wife and soon marched the drunk off to the right room.

I can see why a drunk might try the wrong room, but why the window? Of course, we had one drunk guy in the USAF that friends put into a shower, telling him that it was a phone booth. He kept trying to call the girl whose Dear John letter had caused him to drink.

Thankfully, my motel event ended well, and the couple on the other side of that window never knew how close the man had come to oblivion. And it sure saved me a lot of red tape, lawyer fees, and who knows what else. Not that I'd have shot unless feeling a real need, but the potential was there.

The last time I was in a motel room, I was where I couldn't take a gun along, so I relied on a Buck Model 105 knife for protection. It went in my luggage, of course, not with me on the plane. No alarms, thank goodness, but the knife was welcome company...just in case. Its five-inch blade was as large as I thought would pass muster if I had to claim it as a utility tool. And it didn't look too like a combat item, as my Gryphon M-30A-1 would or a Fallkniven NL-2. The NL-2 is too heavy to carry handily in luggage on planes, anyway, besides raising too many intrusive eyebrows in a luggage inspection. The Buck Model 105 is adequate for most needs, and looks relatively innocuous. And if it gets confiscated, it's fairly cheap to replace. Always keep image in mind when travelling with knives!

To see a really bad room experience, watch, "The Deep", based on Peter Benchely's book of that name. The heroine (played by Jacquie Bisset) was assaulted in her room, terrified, and marked with voodoo symbols!