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a B&B life...




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Jokes aside...right of admission reserved

11/14/2013

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Man comes to the front door of a guest house and says he's Mr. Smith, booked in for two nights.
Proprietor: 'Would you like me to carry your bag from the car, sir'.
Guest: 'No, she can walk, but you can bring the luggage.'
Innkeeper: The room is R1000- a night. It's R50- if you make your own bed.
Guest: I'll make my own bed.
Innkeeper: Good. I'll get you some nails and wood.
Paddy is booked into a guest house, and looking round,notices a sign on the wall. He says to the owner: "What time do you get in by?" The owner looks confused and says: "Well, I am the owner, I live here. Why do you ask?"
Says Paddy,"Well, on that sign there, it says guests have to be in before you!"
The owner replies,"No, it says: "Guests must be in before 1 am"!

I do believe in laughing through the turmoil of running a B&B and let's face it there are lots of opportunity for a good chuckle every now and then. At the time I was not amused, but I often tell people about the grading assessor who gave me 3 out of 10 for my furniture. When I queried it she waved her hand in exasperation toward my antique furnished room and exclaimed, "but you only have mismatched second-hand furniture". You can only smile... and cancel star grading.
A fellow guesthouse owner told me about one of her guests who asked in a strong ‘Indian’ accent whether her young employee (fresh out of high school, and not yet with an ear accustomed to foreign accents) had “toilet paper”. The young lady promptly went to get what she heard the guest had asked for – the guest was of course very surprised when she returned, as he had in fact asked for “today’s paper”! Fortunately, the guest had a sense of humour and not only had a good laugh about the incident, but shared the joke with the guest house owner!
Sometimes my ability to smile lands me in trouble. I once walked out to greet guests and there they were sitting in their car, while the husband lets rip with a tongue lashing of note. What to do - turn around and leave them to it? But what if they take that as inhospitable? In the end, I pretended not to hear them and industriously started deadheading the nearest daisy bush. When the wife timidly walked toward me I smiled bravely and told her to come in - I'll make them a nice cup of tea. She explained that her husband was very upset with her map reading abilities. At that stage, Angry Hubby was slamming car doors and huffing and puffing with the luggage, but the next minute he tells me to wipe that smile off my face! Me? Wipe the smile off my face? In a flash, it was gone. I then calmly pointed toward the Right of Admission sign above my front door and told him to put his luggage right back into the car as he would not be sleeping in my guest house.
Today I can laugh at this incident, but at the time it was not funny - I am in the business of welcoming guests into our home, not chasing them away! But that is the promised blog post about the day that I fell back on the "right of admission reserved" sign.


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    This is the story of our house, lovingly restored and shared with guests and family since 1995.
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