I was headed for an instrument makers convention in Tucson, one cold night, and was too tired to drive further, so I looked for a cheap motel, hoping to catch a few hours of sleep, then press on.
This was somewhere in Nevada, I can’t recall where... not much of a town, but I remember the motel was $27/night. Very cold, and parking virtually non-existent... just enough space to get off the highway.
Obviously, at that price, the place was a real pit... barely clean, but I carried all my instruments inside, safe from freezing, and headed off to sleep.
I noticed that the bed had heavy plastic, sheathing the mattress, and only the sheet between the plastic and me, and it gradually dawned on me what that room “usually” was used for in Nevada: not sleeping. (“Ah, well... get some sleep and get out...”)
But as I tried to relax, I began to feel “something” crawling on my legs, and I feared I had become bedbug bait, so I whipped back the covers, rolled out and flipped on the light. No bugs at all!
Turned out the cold dry weather and the plastic sheath under the sheet had combined to produce quite a static charge: the “crawling” I had felt was every single hair on both legs standing out straight, from the static electricity.
I didn’t sleep well, but I finally did sleep. No more $27 rooms, after that.
