The Twin Squid Lodge

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

     Liz hesitated at the door, scouting out the premises before entering. Twin Squid? Was it a mere name, or was the Lodge actually managed by twin, marine cephalopods? The mind boggled. Well, at least hers did. Still, she mused, looking around, it couldn't be any worse than the one run by pink spiders, on the other side of town.
     Funny. There was no one to be seen. "Hello?" she called out, hesitant about entering a vacant tavern.
     A tentacle waved from behind the counter. "Hoy! A customer! Myrtle!" The squid hauled itself up on something, perhaps a step-ladder. It was hard to tell, from this vantage point. "Excuse the chaos, please. We only opened today."
     Liz shook her head. "That's all right. I'm new here, too. Got anything to help unstick writer's block?"
     The squid paused for a moment. Whether in thought, or because it wanted to, Liz could not say. Then, it must have reached some decision in its internal deliberation. "I don't rightly know if it would be good for writer's block, but we have some coffee liquor that makes a mean cocktail.
     Liz grinned. "Good enough." She went straight up to the bar. "It's worth a shot--or, preferably a whole glass. Fix me up."
     A squid came out of the back room. "What you want, Mortimer?" she asked. Then, she saw Liz. Hoy! Our first customer!"
     Mortimer chuckled. "We need a bottle of coffee liquor from the storeroom. Our customer needs a little something to try to kill her writer's block."
     "Or at least, to numb it up a bit," Liz added.
     Myrtle chuckled. "Whatever works, hon." She undulated, for lack of a better word, back into the backside of the Lodge.