I did not wet the bed on the Republican primary campaign trail
File under: things I never thought I'd have to explain
Near the end of my most recent reporting trip, I woke up in the middle of the night, stretched out, and with my left foot, detected an unmistakable wet spot on the empty left side of the King-sized bed.
WTF?!!! I sat up.
I was in a hotel room near the Manchester, N.H. airport. It was about 3 AM.
I investigated.
Not only was the sheet wet - right where it would be if, you know…but so was the inside of the comforter, the mattress cover, even the mattress.
Because I know what you’re thinking - and believe me, I was thinking it, too and I definitely investigated ALL possibilities - my side of the bed and my clothing were perfectly dry.
I looked up at the ceiling. No leak.
I thought hard. Could I have spilled something? My water bottle was on the nightstand to my right, still mostly full. If I’d somehow spilled it getting a sleepy sip, wouldn’t there be water on my clothes or my side of the bed?
But how had I slept here for hours next to THIS and not noticed?
A few facts of the case:
I’m a married woman, used to sharing a bed most nights and staying in my lane
I normally sleep with my husband in a Queen bed; this was a King so I had plenty of space for just little old me
My shoulder is still messed up from my car accident last year, and I can’t easily roll to the left, so I was pretty well-contained on that right side of the bed
So I called the front desk and awkwardly (over)explained the situation. A very nice man came to my room - wearing latex gloves! - assessed the situation, and helped me make up the trundle underneath the couch. The next afternoon, when I came back from watching Nikki Haley shake hands and fawn over a cute baby at a general store in Hooksett, N.H., the bed was freshly made up.
We still don’t know where it came from. They swear that housekeeping changes sheets every night.
For some reason I’ve now told three different hotel staff members that I did NOT wet the bed. They believe me, right?
Sorry if this is all TMI. But this is what you come here for, right? A look inside the glamorous life of a national correspondent…
Anyway, I finally made it to Iowa last week - a day later than planned thanks to the winter storm. Naturally, one of my bags arrived several hours later than I did at the Cedar Rapids airport - but it didn’t really matter because I spent the first night stuck there because of the weather, with plenty of time for my bag to return to me. I made friends with a network TV producer who was in the same situation. It all worked out.
Eventually, I did manage to catch up with Nikki Haley in Adel and Ames, both of which are within an an hour of Des Moines. And you know what happened: Trump won, by a lot. DeSantis a distant second, just ahead of Haley. Ramaswamy is out, as is Hutchinson.
A campaign swing like the one I’ve just completed is intense and fascinating and exhausting. It’s a blur of rallies, live radio, late-night deadlines, car rentals, last-minute hotel reservations, energy bar lunches, meeting new colleagues and reconnecting with old ones from previous times in the trenches together.
This time of year there’s an extra layer - literally - of challenge involved in navigating these early-primary states.
For years, people have been objecting that Iowa and New Hampshire are too white to kick off the presidential nominating contests - and it’s true that they are much less diverse than the country as a whole.
But this time of year they are LITERALLY WHITE. As in, covered in thick, white layers of snow and ice.
I’m always proud to be a native Midwesterner, but after an assignment like this I really, really value my winter-driving and snow-scraping skills.
I wound up putting those skills to use.
On Monday, the night of the Iowa caucuses, a colleague and I left our posts in Des Moines where we’d been contributing to NPR’s live special coverage of the caucuses, and hopped on a plane to Manchester, New Hampshire. I slept a little on the overnight flight and then check into my hotel and sleep for a few hours.
Tuesday: Tape the NPR Politics Podcast, write an update for All Things Considered, then spend the afternoon carefully driving in a snowstorm, up to northern New Hampshire, up into the mountains, for Haley first big post-Iowa event. Set up quickly in the hotel ballroom. Jump on All Things Considered live. Record the rally. File my little spot for NPR Newscast. Grab dinner with a colleague from the 2016 campaign, catch up. Sleep.
Wednesday: From my hotel room in Bretton Woods, I tape an episode of It’s Been a Minute about lessons learned from Iowa about the state of the white evangelical vote. Dig the car out of the snow. Then another long drive, this time to Rochester, N.H., to an American Legion post. Then, back to Manchester late at night. File. Sleep. (WAKE UP FEELING A WET SPOT!!!!).
Thursday: Haley campaign stop in Hooksett. File for NPR Newscast. Write, edit, and file a piece for Morning Edition about what Iowa’s results tell us about evangelical voters and Trump (Note: I wrote a book about growing up among evangelicals. It’s out soon and available for pre-order now!) File for Newscast a couple more times. Prep for a CSPAN hit.
Friday: CSPAN’s Washington Journal. Another flight delay. On my way out, I tell the hotel front desk I’m done with the room and mention my number.
“Was everything good with the room…otherwise?” they asked.
OMG! Hotel ghost??!! 😨