The hotel teller was a slim lady wearing a tight black and
white custom made dress in Ghanaian print.
“Could I see one of the rooms? My supervisor is coming for two weeks and I want to see if it’s suitable”.
The reception was already more inviting than the previous place we checked. It had old 70s-style low level chairs with brown fabric and plastic tropical plants, and it definitely smelled less musty. The open stairs up led onto a balcony walkway, and although the room might not have had the surgical stiff generic cleanliness of a Holiday Inn, it had a good view and had taken well to the ageing process.
“Could I see one of the rooms? My supervisor is coming for two weeks and I want to see if it’s suitable”.
The reception was already more inviting than the previous place we checked. It had old 70s-style low level chairs with brown fabric and plastic tropical plants, and it definitely smelled less musty. The open stairs up led onto a balcony walkway, and although the room might not have had the surgical stiff generic cleanliness of a Holiday Inn, it had a good view and had taken well to the ageing process.
“We’ll take it”
“When are they coming?”
“Next Friday. We can put down money now”, Isaac said.
“No you can’t do that. We don’t do it like that”
“We mean, she’s coming for two weeks and we can pay it all now”, Isaac and I chimed.
“No, you have to pay from today and stay today”
Isaac exerted, “All hotels make bookings. And you pay in advance, so that when you come you know you have somewhere to stay and the hotel knows you are true to your word”.
“Yes” I added, “it’s quite a fundamental element of going on holiday- knowing you won’t arrive in a new place and have to sleep on the street”.
“No”.
The subject was raised again with the manager in the lobby
downstairs. He was wearing an orange polo shirt, neat brown suit trousers and
brown sandals.
“But if we give you the key, and somebody comes between now and then, we can’t tell them to go away”, he sighed hopelessly.
“No”, Isaac said, “We don’t take the key now. The room can be rented out between now and next Friday. I am a taxi driver. If I pick someone up at 4:00, it doesn’t mean that I don’t work between now and 4:00”.
I liked his logic.
“But we can’t tell them to leave when it comes to Friday”.
It seemed incredulous to turn away two weeks’ custom and money on the table. The room may well go empty the whole time if we went somewhere else.
“Please come back Monday and we’ll see what we can do then”. It was a compromise after all. But not one I thought Helen in the UK would be thrilled about.
“But if we give you the key, and somebody comes between now and then, we can’t tell them to go away”, he sighed hopelessly.
“No”, Isaac said, “We don’t take the key now. The room can be rented out between now and next Friday. I am a taxi driver. If I pick someone up at 4:00, it doesn’t mean that I don’t work between now and 4:00”.
I liked his logic.
“But we can’t tell them to leave when it comes to Friday”.
It seemed incredulous to turn away two weeks’ custom and money on the table. The room may well go empty the whole time if we went somewhere else.
“Please come back Monday and we’ll see what we can do then”. It was a compromise after all. But not one I thought Helen in the UK would be thrilled about.
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