The Weston Hotel Saved Me

"No problem sir. Should we get you a taxi?...Let me get some water for you."
   The above dialogue occurred at the Weston Hotel. My puffer or inhaler did not work. I did not know why. My body felt like a dead Oak tree infested with beetles. Somehow I took my dead weight down stairs at the 'Y', and walked into the Weston Hotel. I needed clean air. 
   The San Diego City Counsel denied me an air-conditioner twice. I had even brought in my filthy air filter to prove how dusty San Diego had become. With Dr. Gloria as President,each member told me to "go to hell" so to speak. 
   Outside, the sky had been darkened by the North County fire. Ash had flowed south due to a Santa Ana wind. The temperatures reached almost one hundred degrees. I had pleaded with Sir Thomas the 500 building manager and the city council for an air conditioner - of course without any response. 
    I thought my "puffer" had another 167 puffs but somehow it broke down. To compound my problem, an older variety went dead also. Yet it was Monday, and my energy had been depleted. My mind felt like soap at two in the morning. I knew Death crept under my Cockroach invested Y hotel again. 
   The trolleys would walk the early morning rails at four thirty. It felt great to have Martin, a security guard at the Weston's, take an interest in such an old man-made older with another tooth missing. The little bottle of water helped. He left and I decided to ask the night clerk for a taxi. He did. 
   Outside on D Street for Dead, I waited and waited. The taxi would take me to Old Town where my car Dolly was waiting for me. But the taxi's denied me. At about three I walked to the all-night Seven Eleven on C street. I bought a Bic for one dollar and twenty three cents. I would bluff my way from death's door. 
   I took a warm, too warm shower to forget my woes. I then returned to my cockroach infested room at the   'Y'. I took one of the two elevators up and took a long, too long shower. I returned to my room and listened to the T.V. Another fire was ranging in Texas and this time around. Alaska. 
   I awoke at four thirty. The trolleys now were talking. Yet I was too tired to rail it. I felt a westerly cool breeze from the Harbor.  I fell asleep and woke up at seven thirty. Now  I could drive my car to Kaiser and show them the little puffer that would not work.  

   The eight twenty Amtrak 567 took me to my car. I felt alive and Okay. I brought my inhaler inside the Carlsbad Kaiser Pharmacy. A Latina pharmacist did not quite understand me at first. She then told me the problem with my inhaler. 
   "Must be kept in cool place and washed every week. The dust probably did the damage." I told her none of this was mentioned in the tiny directions that came with this device. I left with an inhaler and a back up. I celebrated my new day with a single puff while waiting for my prescription to be filled."
   I spent my new life at the Carlsbad Library fine tuning my book. My first daughter told me she could book two rooms at Portland for me for Father's Day. My Day was today. 

  Nuts and Bolts for today: Well it is now March of 2015, all temperatures marks had been broken. Thank God I left one of the hundreds of San Diego in the Nick of Time.