I like Britain. There's a still a whimsy and a magic with the language.
For instance, today while driving on a roundabout we saw an ad for a bingo hall:
Bingo...with balls!
Here are some other advertisements we saw for British recreation:
Bingo...with shaved balls!
Cricket...with happy Chinese massage!
Snooker...with VacExtender penis enlargement!
Scrumpy...with a bap, a tin of crisps, and a free escort to participating abortion clinics!
But we had to get out there.
So we drove to Dover for the ferry.
We gave them lots of money to get out of England.
Then it was time to go through the customs checkpoint.
Since I was sitting in the front passenger seat of a non-British vehicle, I was the liaison for the van, as that is customarily where the driver would sit.
I gave the customs gentlemen our passports.
"Where are you going?"
That night we had a reservation for a motel in Calais.
"Calais," I answered.
He gave me a look. You see, the ferry also goes to Calais. What was unbeknownst to me at this point was that I was coming across as a smart ass.
"Then where are you going?"
I told him Amsterdam and then home.
I hate telling strangers that we're going to Amsterdam. It conjures up images of American douchebags getting aggressively high and nodding too much. And wearing stupid clothes. And meat sports. And college.
"Amsterdam, out of Schiphol, then?"
His accent made no sense to me.
"What?"
"You're flying out of Schiphol?"
Oh, the name of the airport. That word also makes no sense to me.
"Yes, Schiphol."
"Do you have any documentation..." He wanted proof that we were flying out of Amsterdam.
Later I was told that this is when I let out a big, annoyed sigh. I probably did. I do things like that still.
While I begrudgingly reached for my laptop, the customs agent pointed out that he had a right to ask this question, and explained in great detail some sort of important procedure that I tuned out.
At this point Mike, seated in the back, jumped up and took over as liaison. He put on a big smile and explained that we were an American band on tour.
"What kind of music do you play?"
Mike referred to it as "country pop". I shook my head and growled probably. The flight info was in an email.
"I can't get any flight information because I can't get online."
Reid, seated in the non-British driver's seat, spoke.
"What do you need?" He started searching his laptop.
The customs agent continued.
"Are you taking any pounds with you?"
I let out a hearty laugh. We had just been discussing how much the British portion of the tour had put us into debt.
"That wasn't a rhetorical question!"
Mike explained how much we had started with and how little we were leaving with. Reid found the flight information on his laptop and I handed it to the customs agent. He seemed pleased.
While making a final speech to us about how his job works, he held out the passports for me to take. I tried to take them from him, but his grip told me not to. So I let go of them. He continued to orate about the duties of his job, and gestured for me to take the passports. Again, his grip held onto them more convincingly. I let go again. He made a final analogy.
"I need to ask these questions in order to get paid. Just like you need to play a show in order to get paid." Awesome, I get it, let's fucking go already. This time when he offered me the passports, he let me take them. He said something about living the dream and smiled.
I didn't even know I was being difficult.
I had to have The Bitter Tears point it out to me.
Luckily they were laughing about it.
Words like "indignant" and "asshole" were used to describe my customs etiquette.
Later, I got kind of bummed about it.
This is how I go through life, as an indignant asshole.
And I don't even know it.
No wonder I'm unhappy in the straight world.
Reid and I got loaded on the ferry. We had to get rid of this soon-to-be-worthless sterling. I had a cornish pasty and two pints. Then Reid and I split another pint. I still had about two pounds in random brown or small coins. We were getting near Calais. I asked the bartender if she was almost done.
"I get off in Dover."
Whoa. I meant the bar, is the bar almost done?
I got a half pint of cider, I mean scrumpy (still on a British vessel!).
Our motel was on the outskirts of Calais. It was the first hotel in our 25 days on the road that was pre-booked. We decided to walk into town for a bite to eat. It was a long walk. The streets were completely deserted. The windows weren't even lit. It was the 10 o'clock hour, still twilight. Calais was in a coma.
We walked some more. I found a tree to get rid of my scrumpy-turned-cider-turned-waste. Eventually we stumbled onto the main drag and picked the first place we saw, a bar with a restaurant.
While House flashed silently on the TV, reminding us of Home, we ate grassy escargot, mussels, steak tar tar, and drank beer. Nothing mind-blowing but a lot better than closed nothing. On the long road back to the motel we talked about Metallica.
This might seem dumb: Today I ate well, got a bit of exercise, was at sea, would sleep on a bed and knew about it all day. But these childish interactions with authority that cost time and cause aggravation need to stop, despite their entertainment value.
Verdict: Loss
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