During my last trip to London, I was reminded of the wisdom
of the words spoken by John Travolta’s character Vincent Vega in the film Pulp
Fiction: "It's the little things that make Europe different. I mean they
got the same shit over there as we got here, but it’s just a little
different." For example, it was hard to get our hands on napkins, which
was just as well as garbage cans turned out to be a sort of Scarlet Pimpernel:
virtually impossible to find, no matter how hard you looked. And for anyone
with romantic notions about Buckingham Palace, note the following: There are
weeds in the lawn! If you’re having a hard time imagining this, I don’t blame
you – if someone had told me the truth before I’d seen it with my own eyes, I’d
have more easily imagined Dolly Parton with acorn-sized breasts.
The money is a little different too. I had heard that London
was expensive, but, as silly as it sounds, the pain is somewhat masked by
conducting transactions in the local “funny money”, the British pound sterling.
If you’re using cash, all of it has the same person on it (Queen Elizabeth II),
subconsciously reducing the differentiation between a one-pound note and a
twenty as you’re paying through the nose with the latter. Also, things cost
half-again as much in dollars, so if you’re not doing the calculation all the
time, you can feel one-third better than you ought to. This can have dire
consequences, even if delayed, as you’ll soon see.
One night, dining out at a downscale pizza joint near the
center of town, we ordered four small personal pizzas and two warm beers.
During the meal, I noticed that a couple of men who’d sat down at an adjacent
table were vigorously casting glances my way. At first, I thought it was
because they were looking at something behind me, but when I turned I saw we
were seated in front of a bare wall, so then I assumed it was because we were a
little rummy from our trans-Atlantic flight and thus noisier than London norms
permit. But eventually the waiter came by and served them a single dessert,
which they shared, and the riddle of the glances (as well as that of their
skin-tight jeans and matching pink shirts) was solved.
However, this unrequited sexual tension left me even more
dazed than just the jet lag, which by itself would have easily been an adequate
distraction from the yet-unidentified but oncoming financial crisis. But to
make matters worse, in an effort to soothe the Maître d’ and the rest of the
patrons for the nuisance of our perceived unruly behavior, my traveling
companions had quit the restaurant, leaving me with one credit card with a
notoriously suspect magnetic stripe, which of course failed. I said to the
waiter that I’d be right back and that this happened all the time, but, to ease
his concerns, I left my jacket on the chair, hoping not to return with the good
credit card only to find my jacket being cradled in the arms of a pink-shirted
man from the adjacent table. Fortunately, when I came back my jacket had
remained in its place and everything was quickly resolved without incident, but
I barely looked at the total as I scribbled my signature and pocketed the
receipt.
Of course, this was just a delaying of the inevitable, which
came the following day when we were touring Westminster Abbey. I pulled out the
receipt while standing in the nave and, sure enough, I was overcome with the
shock of paying $120 for four small cheese pizzas and two warm beers. “God damn
it!” I exclaimed, to the horror of one of my traveling companions and more than
a few of the pilgrims, whose glares were instantly trained on me.
As if in The Matrix, time slowed to a near-halt as unspoken
bullets of disapproval converged on me. And as they did, the more primitive
part of my brain sought shelter by nudging my memory neurons. I thought of a
news program that we’d seen upon our arrival in London that profiled a star on
the current Italian soccer team, Mario Balotelli. It was of great interest to
the locals – Team Italy was playing in the finals of the UEFA Euro 2012 (an
important soccer event that happens once every four years that I’d never heard
of) – but my salvation was not to lie in the game, but rather in inspiration
provided by the earlier off-field actions of the star. I had learned that within
days of joining an English professional soccer team, Balotelli was involved in
a car crash. He was carrying £5000 cash at the time – and that when a police
officer asked why he had such a large sum of money he replied, "Because I
am rich."
Inspired by his quick thinking, I in turn quickly came to my
senses and, feigning a look of horror, looked behind me as if I were searching for
whoever might be the heathen stupid enough to utter the unholy words. At the
same time I pushed forward through the crush of humanity (packed in tightly to
maximize profit made from charging an entrance fee of $25/person), pressing onward
until I’d moved beyond the collective consciousness of the group that had heard
me. And when I’d finally reached the safety of anonymity, I let a sigh of
relief go, congratulating myself on my quick thinking and the fact that at
least I hadn’t done it in the Vatican…
