Archive for November, 2004
A last glimpse from this trip to the glorious UK, fairly random… not sure where even to start… the beginning, I suppose.
The rental car I picked up at Heathrow is a Vauxhall, once a time-honored British make, now (I am told) owned by GM and cobbled from a hodgepodge of bits from various leftover Opel models. Aha. This might explain the massive roof supports blocking much of your field of view in every direction.
My first thought at seeing the car at the rental agency: surely this wasn’t intentional. But now I see: several different Opel designs must have piled up on the same draftsman’s table. Possibly along with the plans for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
Undeterred, I eased the Vauxhall Blindspot into gear and toddled off toward a friends’ house near Windsor. Which I immediately drove straight past, distracted as I was by trying not to die in a head-on collision. This week has been only my third time driving on the left side of the road, the word "left" here having a certain malleability, and the word "road" not limiting the realm of things to drive on the left of. At least it’s nice to know that English drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians all seem to have such good reflexes.
So I pulled into the carpark at the Datchet train station to turn around. You know the deal: pull into a spot, cut wheels, into reverse, right back out, on your way. Only this time, when I threw the stickshift to the far right and down… nothing. Glunk is what it said, actually.
Being an American, I responded as one does after a miscommunication: I repeated myself, louder. And the stickshift responded in kind: GLUNK.
Odd. The letter R was right where it should be atop the stick. The car was fairly new and seemed to be working as designed (a questionable merit, granted). Hmm. Glunk, I made it say again. Curiosity now. Glunk. Gluuunnnk. Glunk, glunk. Hmph.
Maybe a different angle? Glunk. What if I push down? Glunk. Do I twist the little knob on top? Glunk. And so on. Glunglunk.
No owner’s manual in the glovebox. Out of ideas.
I realized I might spend this entire week facing a schedule on the outer brick wall of the Datchet train station, gradually learning the minutiae of the Waterloo-Windsor schedule and its subtleties re Weekend Mornings vis-a-vis Weekday Evenings Effective 1 December.
So, more than a little humiliated, I asked the next guy who walked by if he could help. I don’t know what I said, exactly, but it was something like: Excuse me, sir? Can you tell me how to make a car go backwards in your country? Because I have beached my Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and I am facing a brick wall.
The gentleman was well-dressed, by which I mean he was wearing the same long black raincoat that all London executives wear most of their waking lives, often giving rail-station foot traffic here the feel of a drab, sexless version of The Matrix.
His eyes projected intelligence; his manner, wisdom. And then he opened his mouth.
Here let me note for the record: I have bad teeth myself. They look OK now, thanks to the Writers Guild Health Plan, a team of research scientists tinkering dangerously with the boundaries of ethical conduct, and the noble deaths of several courageous volunteers, may God rest their gums. But until about ten years ago, you’d have been able to see (in the unlikely event I opened my mouth in your presence) that one of my incisors had embarked on an adventurous angle, a front-bottom baby tooth was still sitting stubbornly in place 30 years too long, and both of my front teeth were badly chipped at age 7 in (I swear to God this is true) a dreadful Nerf accident.
And let me also point out that while British dentistry is a common source of dismay, I honestly find it much more fascinating than conventional oral maintenance, if only from the standpoint of variety. Back home, if you stop to talk to a pretty girl, you can be fairly confident of what you’re getting in front of, bite-wise: usually, neat white rows of suburban tract dentistry, occasionally punctuated by brief glimpses of leftover food items.
Boring, I say! In Britain, all bets are off. Anything can happen. What could be more exciting? You meet, you shake hands, the discussion starts, and wonders often ensue: abstract shapes; pleasing varieties of shape and size; even light/dark interplay evoking masterworks of chiariscuro. Who says autumnal colors should be restricted to trees? Teeth can be deciduous, too.
I don’t want to be unfair, and I don’t want to stereotype. I don’t know exactly what the gentleman said next. And I don’t want to exaggerate. All I remember is a vague sense of entering into a craggy, lifeless moonscape, followed by the exotic aroma of a Turkish spice market. Then, a blinding light, and all became still.
There was also mention of something about "jiggling the flange." This is not only a fine euphemism for whatever you’re imagining right now; it also actually worked.
It’s hard to describe the motion, but apparently someone at Opel also once designed a ring-shaped marital aid, which was (of course) immediately incorporated into the Vauxhall Fighting Vehicle.
And so began the rest of the trip… I meant to write more tonight. Oh well. In time, I’d like to share the joys of a first whack at cricket, a polite punch in the stomach from a drunken soccer yob, and the taste of vegetarian haggis.
Be seeing you…
… tomorrow morning, and so catching up the night before on the ongoing abominations back home.
Oh man. Wading back into all that… it’s like climbing willingly back down into a vat of acid.
Except I guess for the horrific flesh-melting-off-actual-bones part. OK, yeah, that would be worse.