About five years back, I made a trip to San Diego for a job interview. I did my best online search and located what I thought was a decent hotel in the middle of the trendy Lamplight District. Believing that this was a nice area, with funky shops, I didn't think twice about plunking down 60 bucks a night for this hotel, even though it was not a chain and I couldn't find any customer reviews of it.

Let's pause for just a moment. I realize now that the red flags should have been flying like at a military parade in Communist China. But at the time, I didn't have much firsthand experience with cost-of-living disparities across the country. Turns out, of course, 60 bucks in California is barely enough to buy an all-soy hot dog, and what it gets you in terms of living space is even less appealing.

This hotel (which I shall call the Nitwit Hotel, so as not to shame them) had bars over all of the windows. The building to the right of it was a bail bond office, and to the left—a pawn shop. The parking garage seemed reasonably safe, although the entrance was so narrow that maneuvering my rented Ford Fiesta through it was like navigating a birth canal the wrong way.

Nevertheless, I put aside concerns about the exterior of the hotel, muttered a brief ecumenical prayer, and went inside.

As I scanned the lobby, my first impression was that it looked just like that hotel from The Highlander, where that guy with the safety pins through his neck stayed. You might recognize this caliber of hotel from movies, particularly Big and Twelve Monkeys. I had never seen anything like it. It was extremely shabby and run-down, more spacious than it looked from the outside, and the threadbare red carpet throughout the lobby made it look like an old theater. Then I saw the hooker on the stairs. This woman was the quintessential hooker, complete with torn fishnets, a strip of lycra/spandex functioning as a skirt, and an embarrassment of rouge. She looked like she may have been asleep. Across the lobby, an old woman sat in a bathrobe and a terrycloth turban—Sunset Boulevard meets Skid Row. She had a cigarette in her hand, and I knew instantly that she lived there. This was one of those hotels where people just lived.

I locked myself in my room and considered what to do. I knew I could go elsewhere, but I had already paid the entire sum in advance, and I had a strong suspicion that negotiating to get that money back would bring me nothing but trouble. So I bit the bullet and stayed. It was not as bad as you might think.

Several knobs from the sink faucet came off when I first grabbed it, and the sink itself was small enough that water splashed all over the floor if it was turned on even a little. There was an ancient TV set, but the electricity was on only from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. After that—no lights, no hair dryer, no nothing. I slept on top of the comforter, although it was probably even less clean than the sheets. When I called my parents to tell them I had arrived safely, I did not mention the surroundings. To this day, I don't think they know the full extent of the experience. (Hi Mom!) And incidentally, I had to pay a $20 phone connection fee before the guy at the desk would let me place a call.

But wait! There's more!

At night, there was a great deal of shouting, mostly from the hallway. I peered out the peephole at one point and saw one guy pass a tiny baggie of something to another guy. The butt of a gun was visible in the back of the first guy's jeans. This was not an especially comforting sight, so I tiptoed back to the bed and tried not to cry.

The next day, I did my best to be unobtrusive in my business suit (ha!) and ended up attracting the attention of everyone I encountered on the way out. It's not that I looked super-wealthy or anything—I just looked fantastically out of place. One older gentleman, who sported a pair of polyester pants with vintage stains, eyed me like a vulture as I passed through the lobby. His inscrutable expression unnerved me, and I pledged to snag some pepper spray before the day was out. When I returned, I honestly expected the room to have been ransacked, or to find a note on the doorknob saying: "You have been sold into white slavery. Have a nice day." Nothing happened, though, and I felt a little bad about having thought such things. But, really. Can you blame me?

I stayed a total of two glorious nights in my own Hotel California, and I have to admit, it felt kind of like an adventure. No, Victor Kruger was not actually staying in the next room, but he might as well have been. (I kept listening for sounds of swordplay, followed by an exclamation of triumph, "There can be only one!") As it turns out, I did not take the job in San Diego (what with that cost-of-living business, the salary was not nearly as impressive as I imagined). But I like to think that my memories of the Nitwit Hotel have broadened my mind in some fashion, as well as serving as an enduring cautionary tale about making purchases online without any reference or research. After all, this ain't a WYSIWYG world. What fun would that be, anyway?