I'm still chuckling as I type and it's been quite a few years since we thoroughly embarrassed ourselves while staying at an inn in Nova Scotia.

The first morning at the inn we couldn't sleep, so decided to quietly get it together, creep off surreptitiously in search of coffee and watch the sunrise over the harbour. Since we were staying in a small annex apart from the main inn, the plan SHOULD have worked. However, that was the morning my elderly travel hairdryer decided to utter ominous noises, then emit a stench of burning rubber which mightily displeased the smoke detector in our room. Took only a few seconds of frantic towel flapping to shut it down though, so we hoped that the room was sufficiently soundproofed to contain the noise and our embarrassment.

An hour or two later, we were first in for breakfast and greeted by the innkeeper with a smile, and the comment, Up early today weren't you. Hmmm. We discovered that the detectors were centrally wired and when one went off, the melody resonated throughout the entire inn!! They had leapt out of bed to deal the alarm, but seen our lights on and realized that all was well when they got to our door and could hear quiet giggles. Our secret, she said in response to our utter embarrassment and profuse apologies.

Breakfast was interesting that morning as people trickled in, all questioning the 5 a.m. wake-up call. We finally confessed, and promised all that were staying on, that we were off to buy a new, well-behaved dryer and tomorrow morning would be a little less eventful, so were forgiven -- by most. Next morning (not quite as early thank goodness) I tried out the new dryer. It worked very well, but there must have been some coating in it's innards that burned off with first use and emitted fumes. The angry screaming of a smoke detector was once again heard throughout the inn. This time it was really incensed though and no amount of towel flapping worked. The noise and our embarrassment continued unabated until our hosts finally shut off a breaker and we opened the door and aired the room.

We suffered some pretty strange looks at breakfast that morning but people kindly refrained from tossing toast at our table. The innkeepers continued to be very gracious and found more humour in the situation than we did, but I'm certain they breathed a sigh of relief as we checked out. One of the amenities we treasure the most now is a built-in hairdryer!

Regards, Anne