Saoirse and the Innkeeper

Filed under Hippy, India, Travel

Mark Boyle enters a London inn.

London Innkeeper: Hello, sir. I am a London innkeeper. Welcome to my London inn.

Mark Boyle: Hello. My name is Saoirse or something. Can I have a room for the night?

Innkeeper: Certainly sir. We have single rooms for £10 and double rooms for £15.

Boyle: Wow, those certainly are very cheap rates for a London inn.

Innkeeper: Indeed they are, sir. Incredibly cheap. One could say impossibly cheap. In fact, if you’ve got a moment, I’d go so far as to say that this must be either London in the 1970s, London on the fucking moon, or that one of us has been dropping far too much acid lately. Nice trousers, by the way.

Boyle: Thanks.

Innkeeper: So, which is it to be? Single or double?

Boyle: Single please.

Innkeeper: Great. That’s £10 please.

Boyle: Okay. Here’s the thing. I haven’t got any money.

Innkeeper: So, credit card it is…

Boyle: Actually, here’s another thing. I don’t have any credit cards either.

Innkeeper: I see. Do you have any form of legal tender on your person?

Boyle: No.

Innkeeper: Well, in that case, I humbly suggest you stop wasting my time and get the fuck out of my unrealistically priced London inn.

Boyle: Wait! I do have services I could trade for a room. Skills I could perform. You could help me, and in exchange I could help you.

Innkeeper: Do I look like a poof? Go on, piss off out of here, y’dirty chancer.

Boyle: No, no, not those kinds of skills.

Innkeeper: I’ll reluctantly indulge you for another thirty seconds. What kinds of skills do you have?

Boyle: Well, I have a business degree. And I used to work for a dot-com.

Innkeeper: You want to pay for the room with business consultancy services?

Boyle: Well…

Innkeeper: Ok, time’s up. Fuck off.

Boyle: Wait! I could help you with innkeeper-related tasks.

Innkeeper: Like what?

Boyle: I dunno, cleaning or washing dishes or something.

Innkeeper: I already have a cleaner. She’s already finished for the day. Everything is clean.

Boyle: Maybe she missed a bit.

Innkeeper: Christ on a bike. Listen kid, let’s get hypothetical for a minute. Let’s say I agree to trade with you a room for the night for some cleaning work. I pay my cleaner the UK minimum wage of £5.52 per hour. Let’s further say my rates were actually realistic for a bottom-rung London inn, at maybe £40 per night. You’d have to work an eight-hour day just to afford a roof over your head, and you’d have about four quid left for food. In London, that won’t even buy you a fucking sandwich.

Boyle: But… an eight hour day… I won’t have time to walk to my next destination!

Innkeeper: Life’s a cunt, mate.

Boyle: What about the milk of human love?

Innkeeper: I told you once, I’m not a poof. Get the fuck out of my inn.

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2008-01-30  ::  Kevin Murphy