Horse 3059 - Places To Stay

Welcome weary traveller to The Egg And Scorpion. I note that you have arrived in the wee small hours of the night and are looking for a place to stay. Unfortunately, we closed up for the night some time ago; so all I can offer you is a pint and a pie and kindly advice for $10. The kindly advice is "don't eat the pie." 

Metaphorically speaking, I don't just live on Pedant Corner, I own the pub. The Egg And Scorpion is a lovely Elizabethan pub, with a fine selection of ales and porters on tap. Not only that because I am the one who is the landlord, I have deliberately put the entrance doors on the sides and not cut the door into the actual corner, just to be annoying. That and the fact that inside the pub, the telly is mounted to the wall in that corner. The cricket is on. St Christmas is 223/8 in the first innings against Midsomer who is yet to bat and yes, that 223/8 and not 8/223 (the game shall be scored in runs). If it is 3am and I must be lonely and they are playing cricket at night, imagine how good they must be in the daytime.

There is an Imaginary Sandwich Bar across the street which sells baps at bargain prices; where all the thieves and knaves and liars can get a sandwich and custard slices. Next door to it is a shop that sells knick-knacks and nook-knockers but the doors are always closed, so you have to knock for knick-knacks and nook-knockers. 

Although The Egg And Scorpion is a public house, we don't actually let out rooms for the night. This means that the tourists who have breezed in, often ask me where the good places to stay in town are. 

My friend Ella says that there's the Small Hotel with a wishing well and if you look through the window you can see a distant steeple. It's great for misanthropes because there's not a sign of people and who wants people? So when the steeple bell says, "Good night, sleep well" you can thank the Small Hotel.

There was an Elvis chap who was in here a few nights ago said that he'd found a new place to dwell at the end of Lonely Street. I think that he may have been looking for long term accommodation and to be perfectly frank, I do not think that Elvis ever considered that moving into a hotel was an overly expensive idea. Lonely Street is only a few blocks away from here and although it is pretty quiet, it still doesn't change the fact that paying for a room every night is more money than finding an apartment. Then again, Elvis despite declaring himself to be a postal worker of the US Mail, doesn't seem to have gotten the hint that he has no idea how to address his mail if it keeps on coming back  "Return to sender; address unknown." He should check previous correspondence to make sure that he has used the correct postal address.

Another place that you might try is to drive out of town a little bit. Admittedly that place is not in the centre of town but even if you show up in the middle of the night, the night men are programmed to receive.

The Hotel California is pretty easy to find, given that it is on a dark desert highway and is the only thing around for a while. From what I can gather there appears to be plenty of room and the nightly charges are cheap. They also have a feature which might be able to help out Elvis in that by their own admission you can check out any time you like but are unable to leave. I do not know if this is due poor gyratory road design or if this is because the proprietors are advertising the fact that they enjoy kidnapping people and detaining them against their will but it seems to me that if they intend to keep you there beyond your ability to pay, then they must be bearing the accommodation costs. 

Down the street there's a pub called The Black Crow but I wouldn't suggest staying there. I have heard rumours that that place is rough and people get a mouth full of spiders. Their rooms smell like hotel illness and I think there's a history of domestic violence amongst the proprietors because as they say, the scars they hide are not your business.

There are some other shady places around here like the Hotel/Motel Holiday Inn which sounds far too noisy to be sensible and The House Of The Rising Sun used to have gaming tables but is now replete with slot machines; which are still ruinous for poor boys.

I suppose I could let you kip on the couch by the fireplace because that's warm. We didn't start the fire. It's been always burning since the world's been turning. I can give you the number of the fanciest hotel around here: PEnsylvania 6-5000.