Just let me out!

From Sam's Club (see previous blog) I headed home to unload the groceries, minus a spider. There was no time to grab lunch before my hair appointment, and I knew this was a big mistake. I do not operate well without food. But there wasn't much choice. Missing a hair appointment is like missing a medical appointment -- you get a stern lecture and a warning that they might drop you altogether.

So I already had the beginnings of a headache when I went to the salon. I knew I would be there for a minimum of an hour and a half, possibly longer. Maybe I could just sleep through everything.

But instead of enjoying a relaxing, soothing shampoo and pleasant conversation, my head immediately fell under assault. Each individual strand of hair, it seemed, need to be painted with a cold, gooey dye. Judging by the amount of color remover roughly applied to my ears, throat, cheeks, eyelids, etc., the rest of me was being inadvertently painted along with my hair.

My headache continued to grow, and I was starving. I was left to "process" for about a half hour. "Can I get you anything while you wait?" the stylist asked.

How about a nice chicken salad sandwich and some chips? I wanted to say, but said only, "A glass of water would be great, thanks."

I had had to take my glasses off while the goop went on, and I am blind as the proverbial bat without them. I thought the fuzzy pile of something on the counter in front of me might consist of reading material, and so I reached for it. The first "magazine" proclaimed that J. Lo had had a sex change and her name was now Lo Mein. It only made me hungrier. I put that one down and got another one. I held it an inch from my face to read the large title Country Living.

While I was absorbed in reading about the restoration of an 1840s farmhouse in Connecticut, I heard someone asking whether anyone wanted to order from the pizza place. I caught myself just before raising my hand and saying "I'll take a large with anything on it!"

I had gone through that magazine, four others, and was about to start gnawing on the food advertisements when a cheery voice announced that I was done processing and that Michelle would wash my hair. Would I care to step over to the basin? I would, if I could see it. I dimly made out the shape of what appeared to be a person, or possibly a mannequin. I was relieved when the shape spoke. This must be Michelle, which meant I was heading in the right direction.

Now, it's possible that this was Michelle's first time washing someone else's hair. I'm sure it is not as easy as it looks, especially keeping the water from escaping the basin and spraying all over the client or oneself. My face was continuously splashed throughout the wash. Then Michelle made a yelping sound, dropped the hose, and looked in dismay at the front of her shirt. The water was soaking into it at an alarming rate. At least, this is what I gathered, for I couldn't actually see it myself. But I'm sure it was not a pleasant feeling. She complained that this was the very reason she didn't like to wash under clients' necks, as this misfortune tended to occur. I got the feeling that somehow the clients, in this case me, were slightly to blame in these situations; perhaps our necks were curved in just such a manner as to cause the water to spray completely away from them onto the hapless washer.

Normally a wash at the salon is very soothing to the head, and I had had great hopes that my headache would be somewhat assuaged. But after the water incident, Michelle did not seem to harbor any goodwill toward my head. It was pounded, squeezed, and squooshed until I thought I would scream. The water was boiling hot, then ice cold. Michelle called for more color remover. I began to fear I would go home with a ring of brown dye around my face and neck, and I wanted to ask if I could take some of the remover home with me, just in case.

I was told to sit upright when she was finished. Water poured from my hair into my eyes and ears. I expected a towel to appear, but it went instead to mopping up Michelle's soaked shirt. She did finally wrap my hair turban-style, which felt kind of good on my aching head, but I wanted in the worst way to dry out my ears. I was afraid the water might affect my balance, and then I would be able to neither see nor hear. She turned me in the direction of the stylist's station and told me to go sit down.

The stylist unwrapped my turban without drying around my ears. I lunged for the towel but it was already out of reach. I was hungry, my head was pounding, and I still had the haircut to endure. I was getting surly.

In the history of women's haircuts I do not think there has ever been one that took this long. Not only God, but also my stylist, knew the exact number of hairs on my head, for she cut every single one of them individually. Twice. And then thinned them. She looked in the mirror and compared each strand on one side of my head to the corresponding one on the other side.

And all this time she spoke not a word, which might have helped pass the time a little more agreeably. Only once, toward the end when she was applying a liberal amount of styling foam to my beleaguered hair, did she say anything. The foam must have stung her hand, for she yelled "Ouch!" in a very colorful manner. "I keep forgetting about this cut on my palm," she explained.

I hoped that if it had been bleeding at any point while she her hands were digging around in my hair, she would have noticed.

But I was not yet to be released. Every time I thought we must be done, she saw some stray hair that must be whipped back into position. She primped. She sprayed. Primped some more. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't, because the spray choked my throat and threatened to trigger my asthma. Salon Client Dies of Hair Spray Overdose, I imagined the headlines. It smelled like those home sprays you buy at Christmas, the ones that "evoke your childhood memories of the holidays." I smelled like an evergreen tree.

The final insult was what I paid for all this assault. The price had evidently gone up since my last visit, which was in 1984. (Just kidding.) For that price, I thought, I should look like J. Lo, before she became Lo Mein. And speaking of Lo Mein, I needed some lunch.

Sam's Club adventure

You've had days like mine yesterday. I was heading for the milk case at Sam's Club when I heard a cheery voice, emanating from a woman holding a clipboard, say to another shopper, "Hello there! I'm Rita, and I'd like to ask you some questions..." The dreaded survey taker! I swiftly got my milk, being careful to avoid eye contact, and turned around and headed, at a fast pace, in the other direction. Whew! That was close. Good thing that other shopper was there.

I quickly forgot about Rita and was mulling over which chips to get when I remembered I had forgotten to get orange juice. I headed back to the refrigerated case. Too late, I realized Rita was just finishing up with the first shopper and was looking for another victim. Abort! Abort! The warning sounded in my head. But it was too late to turn around. She headed straight for me. I could see the smirk on the other shopper's face. Have a nice chat, she was thinking.

"Hi, my name is Rita and I'm from Home Energy Improvement...how are you this morning?"

I was fine until a minute ago, I thought, but said more charitably, "Fine, thanks."

"Are you a homeowner?" she asked. She said it somewhat tentatively, as if she didn't think I had the wherewithal to own a home.

Suddenly I envied all the shoppers in Sam's who were renters.

"Yes," I admitted.

She beamed. "Great! Now, how would you like to learn about some energy-saving improvements you can make to your home?"

Why these companies think that you will be interested in hearing about energy-saving improvements to your home when you are shopping for milk and orange juice and a hundred other things, I will never know. But of course I did not say this.

"No, not today, thanks," I said. "I don't have the energy."

I got my orange juice and made my escape while Rita turned to the next hapless customer. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I said to myself. Why did you come back here when you knew Rita was here?? That's what I get for being so smug about avoiding her the first time.

I had brought along a couple of coolers to hold my cold stuff on the way home. I was loading everything into them when a large spider, most definitely uninvited, decided to take a look at the offerings. It descended from the top of the tailgate right into cooler #1 and perched just inside the lid.

"No! No! No!" I shouted at it. "Not in my cooler! Get out! Get out!"

It didn't, of course, and I started throwing things out of the cooler, out of harm's way, with little regard to where they landed. I was focused on one thing, and one thing only: getting that ugly thing out of my cooler. I couldn't touch it -- that was out of the question. I picked up the cooler and shook it frantically over the parking lot, hoping the force would jar the thing off. The spider clung to the lid like it had glue on its legs.

I banged the cooler on the ground, and here at last I got some results. The lid broke completely off the cooler and landed some five feet away, narrowly missing an elderly couple on their way into the store. "Die, you idiot! Die!" I shouted at my cooler. The couple looked startled and gave me a wide berth.

I looked around frantically for something to swipe at the spider. I started to reach into my purse for a Kleenex when I saw a bag of green beans in the cart. That would be better. I wouldn't come close to touching the thing. I swiped the beans at the spider. On the third swipe I finally dislodged it. It landed on the ground and immediately started running toward me. I danced around, green beans in one hand and lidless cooler in the other, not wanting to crush the thing now that it was out of my personal belongings.

I gradually became aware of the spectacle I must be presenting here in the parking lot of Sam's. Somewhere among the remaining groceries I gathered what was left of my dignity and quietly set about reloading the car.

But as so often happens, fate wasn't done having fun with me yet that day.

Tomorrow: A haircut experience to remember

The Detective

I have oft been ridiculed for my organizational skills, which some call excessive. I merely call it being efficient. In my preschool classroom in one building, we had a row of cupboards against one wall. I organized these by toys, holiday stuff, teacher stuff, etc., and then stuck a number sticker to the outside of each one.

Other teachers and aides would come in and ask to borrow something, say, rubber stamps. "Door 5," I would say without looking up. "Help yourself."

One week I noticed that a lot of people had been asking to borrow things...things it seemed they should have had, like paper and crayons. I said to my assistant, "It sure seems like people have been borrowing a lot this week."

She giggled but didn't say anything. I narrowed my eyes at her. "What?" I demanded.

"I told them how you have all the cupboards numbered and you know which cupboard everything is in," she admitted. "They didn't believe me, so I told them to come see for themselves."

"Ha ha ha," I said. "Well, now they know the reports are true."

I also had a tendency to notice when things were missing or out of place. The kids couldn't get away with moving anything, and neither could my assistant. I was out the day before my birthday one year, and when I came back I noticed little tell-tale signs of mischief. There was glitter all over the kids' cubbies, and my lesson plans had not included any glitter activities. The cookie sprinkles were all in disarray in a different cupboard than they should have been.

Later that day I was not surprised to be presented with a big, glittery birthday card the kids and Pattie had made for my birthday. I was also not surprised when they unveiled several misshapen cupcakes with sprinkles. "We made these for you when you were gone!" they said.

I oohed and aahed and thanked them profusely. "I never would have guessed!" I said.

My assistant was quite proud that she had carried all this off without my knowledge. "The kids did a good job of keeping the secret, didn't they?" she asked.

"They did," I said.

"What do you mean?" she said. "I didn't give it away, did I?"

I confessed to noticing the trail of glitter and the misplaced sprinkles.

She made a sound of disgust. "You notice too much! One of these days when you're out I'm going to rearrange this whole room!"

She never made good on that threat, thank goodness. I think I would have noticed.

This is just a drill

One of the first things we did when we got on the cruise ship in Greece -- after seeking Bekim's ill-fated advice about electrical equipment -- was to participate in a lifeboat drill. This was a mandatory drill, and as you can imagine most of us were not too thrilled at having to don an orange straitjacket and wait around a few hours for instructions. We would much rather have been sunbathing or exploring the ship, or even reading the instructions for the lifeboat drill.

I wish I could say that the drill was conducted in a manner of the utmost order, filling us with the assurance that we would all survive if, indeed, something really did happen. But it was more like a herd of errant cattle wandering aimlessly in the hills far from the homestead, tended by only a few cowpokes who knew little about cowpoking.

The lifejackets all had a series of numbers on them, which had some vague connection to where on the ship you were supposed to congregate. But because we could never figure out this connection, we just joined ourselves to the group that was closest to the beverage area. Finally one of the cowpokes told us that not only were we in the wrong group of cattle, we weren't even supposed to be together. My lifejacket number corresponded to a group near the gift shop, and my sister's to one on the opposite side of the ship. It was comforting to know that in a real emergency, we would, right from the start, be separated from our loved ones. After the emergency is over, I guess, you would be allowed to meet up with them, assuming you were both still alive and remembered you have loved ones.

We conveniently ignored this information and stuck together. Nothing would pry us away from the beverages! They were necessary to sustain us through the very long, extremely boring wait. We cattle just milled around, mooing at various decibels.

And then there was the little matter of tying your lifejacket. First of all, it is physically impossible to accomplish yourself, according to the way we were shown how to do it. You need at least three strong men who have an intimate knowledge of belts and clasps and knots. When the lifejacket is properly secured, the wearer gradually loses all feeling from the neck to the waist. This is so that if you do happen to perish in an emergency, you won't feel as much.

I had quite a bit of trouble getting my lifejacket to this point, and a cowpoke from another group had to come help me. After wrenching the jacket in several directions, causing the upper part of my anatomy to shift to various unfamiliar positions, he declared himself satisfied.

And just in time, for the whistle blew, indicating that we were to proceed to the deck for the captain's inspection. All was silent.This was not an easy task to accomplish, what with some 500 cattle on board, but the suffocating properties of the lifejackets helped keep us quiet, as we had little breath for any extraneous noise. Indeed, here and there a few of the weaker cattle fell over from lack of oxygen.

The captain -- who, I noticed, did not have a lifejacket on -- came striding on deck, his shiny shoes clip-clopping through the silence. He did not deign us important enough to make any sort of announcement but just went from group to group, occasionally pointing something out -- we were too far away to hear what he said -- until he stopped at our group. As luck would have it, he stopped right in front of me. I drew myself up as much as my straitjacket would allow, knowing he would be impressed at how perfect my lifejacket was. His eyes roamed our group; occasionally he would nod at someone, and then his eyes finally came to rest on me. His face became a mask of disapproval. He held both hands in front of me, as if to show off a particularly bad specimen of something.

"This is a disaster!" he said angrily in clipped English. The whole ship could hear him, and people pressed closer to see. "You would drown if you went overboard in this -- this -- mess!" he sputtered. And he reached out again, undid the whole thing -- air! blessed air! -- and expertly did it up again. I could tell that it was better than before, for now I could not breathe or move at all.

"There!" he declared, looking around at everyone. "That is the way you put on a lifejacket!"

I looked directly at him. With what little breath was left in me, I said, "But, sir, your staff members did this for me."

It was fascinating, watching his face turn that particular shade of red. At least, that's what the other group members told me later. I had fainted from lack of oxygen.

An eye-opening trip to the beach

We Americans stood out in Greece. Not because of our tennis shoes, and not because of our cameras (the Japanese had us beat there). Because we were wearing clothes.

Apparel is optional on many beaches in Europe, as we were well aware (after all, we did read our guidebook). But knowing such a phenomenon exists, and seeing it, are two different things. It was hard to know where to look when we got to the beach, so we looked straight down, with the result that we left in our wake a trail of knocked-over beach chairs, umbrellas poking upside down out of the sand, and grumbling bathers whom we had inadvertently stepped on (but didn't look at!).

Then we ran into our first big dilemma. We had, stupidly, forgotten to put on our bathing suits under our clothes, and now we needed a place in which to change. When we dared lift our eyes from the sand to look for a restroom, changing area, tree, anything, there were only these little round huts with NO DOORS. We lowered our eyes again and trudged in what we hoped was the direction of the snack bar. We asked about a place to change.

The man at the counter sized us up. "Americans?" he said, as if there could be any doubt. We were fully clothed on a topless beach!

We had to admit that he was right.

"Ah," he said, "for you, we put up the little huts. The Europeans, they need nothing. They change on the beach."

My sister was okay with the prospect of using the little huts, figuring we could take turns standing in front to shield each other from prying eyes.

I looked at her as if she were demented. "If you think this American is going to expose herself in that pathetic excuse for a changing room, you are highly mistaken," I said. "There must be somewhere else we could use! How about a restroom? You have a restroom, right?" I asked the man.

"Ah, restroom. For customers, yes, we have restroom," he said shrewdly.

It was either buy something from him, giving us the privilege of using the restroom -- and I use the term loosely -- to change in, or stay in my clothes on the beach in 110 degrees. So we bought a coke, which after bargaining we got for about $5, and headed off to the relative privacy of the restroom to change.

Our one-piece bathing suits caused about as much twittering from our beach neighbors as had our street clothes. Obviously we had "PRUDES" written across our foreheads. I kept my eyes glued to my book, or closed when I lay down, and when I did finally venture to the edge of the water, I went straight down there and came straight back so I would not have to lift my eyes to see where our towels were.

I became aware of general laughter in our area and looked around at myself frantically to see if the laughter could be directed at me. I didn't see anything amiss, and looked up to see what could be the cause. Coming toward us, marching in a line like an army storming the beach, were about 15 people from the cruise ship, all fully dressed in street clothes. I heard murmurs of "Americans!" and "They're so bloody proper."

Well, I thought, hating to think ill of my comrades. They do look a little overdressed.

Americans loose in a Greek hotel

Today we return to our Greek travel saga...

They say that bathrooms are one of the most dangerous places in a home, and we can testify that it is not only in a home that bathrooms are dangerous. We stayed a couple of nights in Athens, where our hotel -- which was supposed to cater to American tourists, who like their creature comforts -- was booby-trapped with odd-looking machines, cords, and all manner of gadgets. The bidet, we knew about. "They can't get us with that old European trick," my sister and I said to each other. But still, we treated it gingerly, for we knew that in a moment unawares we could accidentally push or pull something we hadn't intended to. And we preferred to "cleanse ourselves" in the bathtub.

The hair dryer, attached to the bathroom wall and sitting securely in a little holder, looked normal and harmless enough. But when we took it out of its little holder, it suddenly came to life, writhing and swinging wildly around and around until, fearing for our lives, we ran out of the bathroom and held the door shut, as if at any moment it would come crashing through and wind its crazed cord around our necks. When we thought it was safe -- which was after breakfast the next morning; in the meantime, we used our parents' bathroom -- we cautiously opened the bathroom door, where the hair dryer lay on the counter, serene after its outburst, and we carefully replaced it in the wall holder. It looked so natural that we doubted anything had happened at all, but then we saw the broken light fixture, and we knew we had not imagined it.

My mom, after the long plane ride, was luxuriating in the bathtub in her room. In the midst of her luxuriations, she noticed a cord that did not appear to have an obvious purpose. Being a woman of average curiosity, she pulled it, but nothing happened. She shrugged and thought nothing of it. She was just happy to have hot water.

A few minutes later she heard a knock on the outer door, and thinking it was my dad, who had come over to see my sister and me, she yelled, "Use your key! I can't get to the door!"

But there was only silence. Then another knock.

"I said use your key!" she shouted in exasperation. "I can't come to the door. I'm in the bathtub!"

But no key was heard, and no husband appeared. When he finally did show up, long after she was out of the bathtub, she said, "I can't believe you forgot your key! Where have you been?"

"I've been in the girls' room, watching a crazed hair dryer," he said.

"Weren't you knocking at the door?"

"Why would I knock?" he said. "I had my key."

She stared at him. "Well, then who was knocking at the door? About a half hour ago."

"I didn't hear any knocking," he said, "but I did hear someone yelling that they were in the bathtub. Half the hotel heard it."

She didn't want to go down to dinner after that, but we persuaded her that no one would know who she was. During dinner, the manager came over to our table. "Is everything satisfactory in your room?" he asked my mother politely.

Don't ask us if everything's okay with our room, I thought, thinking of the hair dryer.

My mother, somewhat puzzled, assured him that everything was fine.

"You do not require any..." he paused delicately, "assistance?"

She looked blankly at him.

He saw that hints and delicate speaking were not going to achieve the desired effect. "Madam rang the pull-cord alarm in the lavatory earlier in the evening," he said, as if reproving a small child for playing with a toy that was delicate. "We thought perhaps there was some emergency."

She almost choked on her fish, capers threatening to come out her nose, as we smothered our laughter in our napkins. Finally she managed to tell him that no, there had been no emergency, she had merely wondered what the cord was for.

By his look he clearly had had long dealings with dumb, curious Americans. "The next time Madam wonders what something is for," he said with a slight sniff, "please ask."

Another anniversary

Today seems like a good day to take a break from our travel stories. I wouldn't want to make anyone too jealous with my descriptions of breathtaking scenery, rare native treasures, and scorched cruise ship furniture.

Plus, today marks a different anniversary. It is Joe's and my 2nd anniversary of the longest wedding photo session in history. Oh, wait, that was yesterday. Today actually marks two years since we were married.

At least we think we were. This has always been a cause for concern on my part, because the minister, Mark, never actually pronounced us man and wife, or woman and husband, or anything legal like that. It had always seemed a traditional part of wedding ceremonies, and one that we had, perhaps naively, assumed would be included in ours. Perhaps Mark was too overcome with emotion to remember to perform this routine but significant part of the ceremony. Perhaps he was thinking, these two don't know what they're getting into.

So through the rest of the ceremony, I worried. I felt an urgent need to whisper to him, like the scene in Princess Bride, "Say 'man and wife!' Say 'man and wife!' " The difference being, of course, that in the movie it is the bad guy saying this as he is trying to force the lovely maiden, whose true love has been mostly dead all day, to wed him against her will. So there is not too much similarity between that scene and our wedding, but nevertheless that's what I was thinking. I find that Princess Bride has many such lines that are applicable to everyday life, even though the plot and characters are far removed from any reality I'm aware of.

Of course I brought this nagging issue up to the minister as soon as we were finished taking more pictures, which was 6 months later. Were we, actually, married or not? This had great and far-reaching implications for many things, such as whether or not we could, legally, display all those wedding photos we had taken. If we weren't technically married, well...it was questionable.

My chance to question Mark came when he brought the marriage license for us to sign. How do you tell a respected minister that he had, by all appearances, goofed up on your most important day? I took a deep breath, prayed for wisdom, and chose the direct route.

"You didn't say we were husband and wife!" I hoped it did not come out accusatory. "Are we really married?" I went on. "Is there some sort of addendum we could do to the ceremony, right here? Or do we have to do it all over again?"

At this point Joe fainted, no doubt envisioning that such a course would necessitate retaking every single photo.

But the minister, as always, was calm. "I most definitely said it in the prayer," he assured me.

I was sure that counted with the Lord, but I had my doubts about the state. However, Mark seemed confident that this was okay, and so I signed. Well, I thought, even if the state doesn't abide by prayers, it can't argue with a signed license.

The irony is that 2 years and 1758 photos later, we still do not have a single wedding photo displayed. Even though we have a license to do it.

Traveling the Greek Isles

In honor of the 10th anniversary of my family's trip to Greece, which actually was 11 years ago (but I didn't have this blog last year), I would like to dub this week "Greek Week," and no, there will be no rushing or kegging or anything like that. I would merely like to reminisce somewhat about our trip.

First, let me say that it was purely coincidental that it was our side of the cruise ship that lost power the second day, delaying our departure to the next port while an electrician came on board to repair the damage. It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the use, by my sister and me, of unapproved appliances in the outlets. I can say this with complete confidence because we, being conscientious tourists, got approval for all our appliances, including the microwave, from the guy who worked at The Travel Store at the mall back home.

It may be that we did harbor a few, small nagging doubts about his judgment, and this may explain why we also asked about these matters at the front desk of the ship. Now Bekim -- such was the man's name who helped us -- was a very harried man that day, having to deal with an irate woman whose luggage seemingly had chosen to go adventuring elsewhere in the world rather than following her onto the ship. So Bekim is to be forgiven if he made a teensy, tinsy mistake about which teensy, tinsy piece of apparatus we were supposed to use, a converter or an adapter. He is also to be forgiven for not speaking much English, being, as he was, an Albanian in Greek waters, and the fact that the passengers, whom he was there to serve, were 100% American should have had no bearing on what language he spoke. He diligently listened to our inquiries, studied the small contraptions we had laid on the counter, and appeared to do an Albanian -- or perhaps Greek -- rendition of "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" before pointing to one of them. Whereupon we happily collected our appliances and apparatuses and descended to our stateroom, secure in the knowledge that we had complete authority to wreak whatever havoc we might like on the electrical system.

Let me hasten to add that, being conscientious tourists, we did nothing to our electrical outlets that we would not have done at home, the only difference being, perhaps, that here our appliance usage was confined to one room, or two if you count an ant-size bathroom as a room. There was also, of course, the difference in voltage between the ship and home, we being used to 110 volts and these lines being 220, but we figured more was better. So while my sister happily manipulated her hair dryer, curling iron, and other assorted hair-enhancing machines in the bathroom, I did the same out in the main room. At one point I did notice a rather large brown spot in the formica end table, which I didn't remember seeing on our entry to the room, but it is mere speculation to say that it had anything to do with my curling iron.

Now, to those of you might be thinking, Why didn't they just share everything?? I would say, you have never been in a five by five space with two women for nine days.

And after all, we have only the electrician's word that the power outage was due to a blown fuse. It could just as easily have been caused by marine life, such as a mermaid, getting tangled up in some wire or other. We also have only the electrician's word that the problem seemed to originate in Stateroom 3498392022, which, surprisingly, was the one my sister and I were staying in. We maintained our innocence and directed authorities to the stateroom next door, which had struck us as suspicious because we had never seen anyone enter or leave it. Anyone could have been in there doing any number of illegal electrical maneuvers, such as building a bomb. The crew stated, unsmilingly, that it was not likely the room was being used as such, and anyway only crew members went in there as it was a supply closet with no outlets. At least that's what we think they said, as they spoke only in Greek and at a rate that precluded us from flipping through our Greek-to-English guidebook fast enough to keep up. Not that "electrical emergency" was even listed in there, as we later discovered. I have since written to the publishers to beg, in the interest of future helpless tourists, that they correct this egregious error.

When our ploy to implicate the room next door failed, we reluctantly -- for we didn't like to point blame at anyone -- pointed at Bekim. Clearly his "moe" had landed on the wrong choice, so if anyone should be found at fault it should be him. But Bekim, sadly, had already been found knocked senseless behind the front counter, dressed in a woman's pantsuit. The woman with the lost luggage, being driven to such lengths after being forced to wear the same outfit two days in a row, was taken into custody.

But in these difficult situations we must look on the bright side of things. After the unfortunate electrical incident, the cruise line enacted important safety changes to ensure that such a catastrophe never happened again. From that day on, a certified mermaid was on board at all times.

And the miracle of it all is that it did not happen the first day.

Crossing over

I well remember the first time it happened. I was in line at the service counter at Toys 'R Us, desperately trying to find one more Furby so I would have enough to give one to all the kids in my class at Christmas. My anxiety was weighing heavy on me -- I couldn't give 9 kids a Furby and 1 kid something different! And I had been to every toy store in the area. I didn't notice that I was next in line.

Finally I realized the clerk was calling the next person. But he was calling "Ma'am," so obviously someone else must have been next. I went back to my worries. What if they weren't expecting to get anymore Furbys? And is the plural of Furby Furbies?

The clerk's voice, now significantly louder than it had been, penetrated my thoughts again. Why wasn't this "Ma'am" responding? I didn't have all day to wait. I looked around, annoyed.

But there wasn't anyone else there. Slowly, I realized . . . I was it. I was the Ma'am.

Surely there was some mistake. Ma'ams were moms, grandmas, elderly English schoolmarms who long ago should have retired! Not me! I was still young, still --

I looked at the clerk. They let 14-year-olds work in a store now? I thought. I was torn. I needed to know about the Furbys, needed desperately to go up to the counter and ask him, but to do so would be to take my place in that club, that club no woman enters willingly, the club whose members have laid down their youth. Forever.

But the need for one more talking, furry alien propelled me to the counter. Happily, they had some more stashed behind the counter, and I got one of the last ones.

Thankfully, there is only one "first time" for anything, and after that it got easier to respond to "Ma'am." But every now and then, just to show the youngsters who service our stores and restaurants that I haven't rolled over dead yet, I assume an innocent face and say sweetly, "Oh, ma'am, can you tell me . . . ."

Flea Market II

Once things at the flea market had settled down a bit (including my temper), we began to enjoy our surroundings. There wasn't that much to enjoy in the immediate environment, as we had been placed in a hallway far from the other booths. But occasionally we took little forays around to check out the other booths and talk to people. There was a gentleman further down the hall, between us and the bathroom, and we found ourselves making several trips to the bathroom. This afforded us an excellent view of this gentleman. And look at him we did. He was Mr. Bean with glasses and a heavy Eastern European accent.

We had taken no notice of what Mr. Bean was selling, being fascinated by the man himself, but gradually we noticed that people would linger in his booth for long periods of time. One man was there for hours, even having his lunch and dinner delivered. He was poring over books of something -- we couldn't tell what -- and frequently took out his phone to, presumably, inquire about something in the books. Finally I couldn't stand not knowing what all the fuss was about, so I told Joe to take another trip to the bathroom.

"But I don't need to," he protested.

"Neither do I, but I want to know what Mr. Bean is selling," I said. "I can't see from here."

So Joe sauntered by convincingly on his way to the restroom. On his way back from the restroom he, too, stopped to look at Mr. Bean's books. He was there so long I began to suspect the man used some sort of spell that made people physically unable to leave until they broke down and bought something. But finally Joe sauntered back.

"Well?" I said excitedly.

"He's selling matchbooks," he informed me.

"Matchbooks?" I said.

"Matchbooks," he said. "They're from all over the world. Some of them are pretty rare, I guess."

I lost all interest in the man after that, no matter how much he looked like Mr. Bean. Matchbooks!

Sometime later, I was visited by the Closet Nazi. Apparently we had set up smack in front of the custodial closet, which the Nazi informed me was at all times to be free from obstacles so as not to obstruct the janitorial personnel in the event they required immediate access to their supplies. She hinted at janitorial emergencies of immense proportions. Since I constituted an obstacle, I would have to move. Seeing no place I could move sideways, as that would block other, equally vital doors, I moved our tables out into the middle of the hallway. I felt very exposed, but the Nazi was firm.

So there I sat, in the middle of the hallway, until the woman in charge of the sale came by. Being very astute, she noticed my change of position and smiled knowingly.

"Was Hazeline here?" she asked.

I nodded. I didn't really know the Closet Nazi's name, but that sounded like a good guess.

"And did she tell you to move away from the custodial closet?"

I nodded again.

She chuckled. "There's never been a need to get in that closet in 11 years, but she takes her duty very seriously, does Hazeline." She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "She leaves at 2. You can move back then."

I nodded gratefully.

"Oh, by the way," the woman went on in a normal voice, "here's the $3 I owe you for the frying pan."

I looked at her blankly.

"Your husband knows," she said, nodding toward Joe, who was just returning from another look at Mr. Bean's matchbooks. The afternoon had been slow.

The woman left, and I looked at Joe. He had suddenly developed an interest in the ceiling tiles.

"She took a frying pan without paying?" I whispered vehemently, looking to make sure she was out of hearing range. "And you let her?"

He looked down from the ceiling and nodded sheepishly. "It was while we were really busy this morning, and she said she would just catch up with us later."

I shook my head at him. Well, he had done a great job that day, so I couldn't be too mad at him. He had made a lot of good deals and was very friendly to people.

"Okay, buster," I said good-naturedly. "I'll let you off this time, but next time -- no, never mind. After the day I've had, there's not going to be a next time."

Computer Nazi

Where I used to work we had a Computer Nazi. Although she worked in marketing, she was the closest thing we had at that time to an IT department, and she took this ancillary position very seriously.

Anne had an air of long-suffering patience when it came to dealing with computer problems. To her, we were all a bunch of untrained monkeys, fooling around with expensive pieces of equipment we had no business fooling around with. This, she was convinced, was the source of all our computer troubles -- woefully inadequate personnel using machines that had higher IQs than we did. Indeed, given our level of ineptitude, it must have seemed to her a miracle that we did not have more computer problems.

Her list of computer don'ts was long. Do not use screen savers. Do not pile papers on the CPU. Do not keep it too hot in your office. Do not keep your computer on overnight. Above all, do not play Stress Reliever Paintball.

This was a program someone had sent around when the organization was going through a particularly stressful time, financially and in other ways. When you loaded the program, a ray gun would appear on the screen. You could choose a color, take aim at an annoying document -- say, a memo from administration informing you that raises would be nonexistent this year -- and fire away. Big splotches of brightly colored paint would fill the screen. It was a very satisfying way of taking out your frustration, particularly with authors who didn't know their too from their to. We had great fun with it.

But the Computer Nazi instantly denounced the paintball program as evil, declaring that it used up valuable memory space. She sent out a memo that directed us, in no uncertain terms, to immediately delete the program from our computers. Anyone found with it would face instant death. She suggested that if we were truly stressed out -- and here her tone suggested that no one could be more stressed out than she, given the incompetents she had to deal with at work -- we should look for other methods of coping that did not involve our computers, such as physical exercise, or even counseling. She graciously recommended a few counselors. And because we knew that Anne had our best interests at heart -- and because she had us all cowed -- we bowed to her demands and wiped Stress Reliever Paintball off our computers. But first, we squirted her memo with it.

But though we rolled our eyes at Anne behind her back, she was not so easy to defy in person. When she had to be called in about a computer problem, the Computer Nazi took full command. We melted away when she came, giving her free reign with our errant computers while we stayed far enough away to discourage any tongue-lashings, for it was a foregone conclusion that whatever was wrong was our fault. And always after she had worked on someone's computer, the desktop icons would be rearranged, as if she believed we were too stupid to know where they should go.

I was terrified of Anne. When something went wrong with my computer I tried everything to fix it without contacting her. This included, but was not limited to, banging on the computer, muttering dark threats at it, pleading with it, and finally, weeping and praying over it. I would have anointed it with oil, in the biblical tradition, if I had thought doing so would heal it and save me from having to call Anne in.

For months she refused to put Microsoft Word on my computer, declaring it unnecessary since the foundation used WordPerfect. With great trembling and trepidation, I attempted to explain that most of our authors sent manuscripts in Word and it seemed, therefore, important that I be able to open them. She was unmoved. In her eyes I was too incompetent to have a second word processing program on my computer; it would only give me another chance to screw something up. There were other people in the department who had Word, and if I received a file I could not open, I could just send it to one of them, and they could save it in WordPerfect for me and send it back. It did not matter to her that this would cause a degree of inconvenience to both me and the other person, or that it would waste time. It would not waste computer memory, and that was what mattered.

And so I fought back in the only way I knew how: I posted a Dilbert comic strip that featured a character who was the full embodiment of Anne the Computer Nazi, except that the cartoon Nazi wore a little Russian hat that Anne would not have been caught dead in. At the height of her reign, I taped this comic strip on our department's refrigerator. I don't know whether Anne ever read it -- she did not seem the type to indulge in such frivolities -- but if she did, it's unlikely she saw herself in it. People like her never see themselves as obsessive. Nevertheless, I felt immensely better for having put it there. Viva la monkeys! I would say defiantly each time I saw it -- in a whisper, in case Anne was nearby.

To market, to market

In our never-ending quest to whittle down the amount of "stuff" that is crammed into our tiny rowhouse, we set up at a flea market one weekend. Joe was an old hand at this, having grown up in a family that did auctions and flea markets all the time. I had never even held a garage sale. Although I had been to plenty of sales, I was unprepared for being on the other side of the table.

Our first mistake was arriving late, by which I mean after the sun had risen. The early birds -- vultures, they turned out to be -- were already roaming, pouncing on all the good stuff. We were not even out of the car and people were looking in the windows to see what we had. Joe went in search of a dolly while I guarded our goods.

As we unloaded and moved the stuff to our booth, people would grab stuff right off the dolly and ask how much we wanted for it.

"Whatever the sticker says," I would say through gritted teeth.

"Will you take ___?" they would say, naming some ridiculously low amount.

Go away! I wanted to shout. Why would I give you a deal first thing in the morning? Deals are for later!

But I just shook my head and kept pushing the dolly.

Joe, on the other hand, figured that the more we sold directly from the car or on the way to our booth, the less we would have to set up. So as I fended off people with the dolly, he was making deals at the car.

As I was getting together another load, I heard a lady ask Joe about his steamer, which he had never used.

"I bought it when I was single," he told her. "But I got married, and now I don't need to iron."

"Excuse me," I said to the woman whose booth was next to our car. "That cast iron skillet you have -- is it heavy? It looks heavy."

"Oh, yes, very heavy," she assured me.

"Great," I said. "I'll take it."

"I should tell you that it's not really good for cooking anymore," she said apologetically. "It's old and very worn."

"That's okay," I told her. "I'm not going to be using it for cooking."

Our booth, when we finally unloaded our stuff, resembled a toy store at Christmas. We had boxes piled everywhere, under the tables, wherever we could put them. People didn't even wait for us to take the stuff out of the boxes; they rooted around in them like starving prisoners looking for crumbs. "If you'll just wait a few minutes..." I said timidly. I may as well have been a mannequin.

To make matters worse, we had not been able to fit everything in the car, so Joe had to leave to go get another load. I was alone with the vultures. It got so bad that I considered grabbing our stuff and flinging it at them, just so they would go away, but then I remembered that our objective was to get some money out of this, not just to get rid of things. I looked around for someone in charge to tell these people to behave themselves, but the woman we'd talked to on the phone was looking over one of my frying pans herself. So much for help from authority.

Where is Joe?? I thought for the thousandth time. I finally called him to see if he was on his way.

"Where are you?" I said.

His voice, as always, was relaxed and cheerful. "Oh, here," he said vaguely.

"Where is here?" I said, exasperated.

"I'm at the sale," he said.

At the sale? What does he mean he's at the sale? Then it dawned on me.

"You're...at...the...sale...SHOPPING??" I shouted incredulously. "While I'm here defending life and limb -- not to mention all our precious trinkets -- YOU'RE SHOPPING?"

He could tell I was a little upset.

"I'm just looking around, won't be long," he tried to assure me. "You'll be fine."

I informed him that I had bought a cast iron skillet and explained, in minute detail, what I would do with it if he did not finish his shopping pronto and come help me.

By the time he got back, the vultures had scattered somewhat. "See?" he said. "You're doing great."

I considered introducing him to the skillet right then, but I realized we had a long day ahead of us. He would be more useful uninjured.

Menagerie

I once worked with a family who lived in a small trailer home with two children. They turned out to have other extended family members living with them, of which I was unaware. If I had known, I would, no doubt, have found several excuses not to make a home visit. Ever.

The first time I went out to the home, the physical therapist came with me. We naively knocked on the front door, both laden down with buckets of toys for Brandon. His mom opened the door and welcomed us in, then said, in a voice one might use to talk about the weather, "Oh -- don't put down your toys yet, I have to find the snake."

In a flash the physical therapist was back in the car, a trail of toys streaming behind her. She rolled down the window and yelled, "Let me know when it's safe! I'll just send my instructions by Morse from here."

And so there I was, nervously clutching my toys and hoping that if the snake found me, it might be placated by the toys while I fled back outside. But in a few minutes the snake had been located and escorted back to its cage.

Now this was no ordinary pet snake. It was a three-foot long boa constrictor who looked as if he'd like to have me for lunch. Brandon's mom introduced him as Squeezer. I sincerely hoped Squeezer did not learn to associate me with losing his freedom.

As I settled in -- as much as one can settle in when a snake is less than three feet away and peering out of a glass cage with beady eyes -- I noticed that the curtains seemed to be in some disarray. The snake...?

Then out of nowhere a large, ugly lizard leaped onto the curtains and scampered to the top of the window. "Oh, Iggy!" the mom said with mild exasperation. "Get down from there!"

From his cage, Squeezer eyed Iggy hungrily.

I nearly joined my colleague in the car. A snake AND a lizard? I smiled weakly at Brandon's mom and wondered what other surprises were lurking in there.

I soon found out when a cat and six kittens came tearing through the room, followed by a pot-bellied pig, which at the time were all the rage as pets. There was nowhere for me to escape; if I jumped on the couch I would be directly under Iggy, and anyway the cats were soon jumping all over the furniture themselves in an attempt to get away from the pig, whose legs were too short to propel him onto the couch, though he tried valiantly.

I assumed somewhere in all this mess was Brandon, who had cerebral palsy and moved about by dragging himself on the floor (at school he used a wheelchair, but of course there was no room in the trailer for that). But even if I had been able to locate him, clearly there was going to be no opportunity for intervention with him. I quickly threw out some of my least favorite toys -- knowing there was little chance I'd ever get them back -- and equally quickly tossed the mom some ideas for using them with Brandon. Then I scampered back to the car.

I was just in time, because the physical therapist was getting ready to leave without me, having assumed in the five minutes I had been in the house that I had been devoured by the snake. Needless to say, any additional intervention was done with Brandon at school.

There is a sad -- depending on your point of view -- postscript to this story: Squeezer, who didn't like anyone interfering with his meals, tried to attack Brandon's mom as she was feeding him a mouse. So a tearful family goodbye was said to Squeezer. I did not ask if they simply let him loose in the nearby woods; I thought it better not to know.

Iggy, the lizard, took advantage one day of an open door and made a break for freedom. He promptly got run over by a car. Can you imagine the look on the face of the driver? "Dear, I think we just ran over a small dinosaur."

The kittens were all given away as pets, only the mother remaining with Brandon's family. They had high hopes for the pig, whose name I have long forgotten, and indeed he escaped serious harm for a few years. After Brandon had moved from my caseload to a preschool classroom, his mom brought the pig to school as sort of a show and tell. She put the pig in a wagon and toured around the school. The kids in one room got so excited that the pig got excited and went to the bathroom all over the wagon. The health agency later told the family they'd need to get rid of the pig.

After that, whenever I got a new child on my caseload, I always asked the family how many other children they had -- after asking whether they had a snake.

Friends after 40, II

As part of my current writing class, we had to take a piece we had already written and rewrite it using a different "voice." Not as in a deep papa bear voice or a high, squeaky baby bear voice, but as in the tone you adopt as a writer, whether conversation or formal or somewhere in between. So I took the piece I had written on making friends after 40 (which was originally posted here somewhere) and rewrote it as a news piece. So for your enjoyment, without further ado, here it is...

Study Shows No New Friends After 40

City of Brotherly Love, PA—A study just released indicates that new friendships are rarely initiated after the age of 40. In fact, 99% of people between the ages of 40 and death who participated made absolutely no new friends over the course of the study, which lasted their entire lifetime (making friends in the afterlife was not studied, although the study’s authors say they are looking to secure funding from interested churches to do so).

Dr. Susan Loyal, lead researcher in the study, speculates that by midlife most people’s lives have become very complicated, leaving them little time to meet new people.

“With spouses having midlife crises, teen children experimenting with drugs and bringing home unsavory friends, and elderly parents trying to remember where they put their grocery money, people over 40 just do not have the emotional energy necessary to pursue new relationships. Any energy they do have left is spent trying to find a therapist.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Loyal points out, friends are vital to both physical and emotional health as people grow older. “We found an increased risk of death among older people who had no friends. And people with the most friends lowered their risk of death by a whopping 60%. Of course, this effect did not occur in people over the age of 115."

She adds, “Women who lose their husbands are better able to cope when they have friends who can help them through the trauma of having to learn where their husbands have done the banking all those years.”

Dr. Yu Chum, who was not involved in the study but is also a researcher in the field of relationships, says the study has important implications for those nearing 40. He believes that finding new friends can be done in a manner that fits easily into an individual’s lifestyle.

For instance, he says, “Take a karate class, or a napkin-folding class if that’s more your thing. Learn a foreign language—that has the added benefit of letting you make friends in other countries over the Internet, and if you do happen to be over 40, they won’t necessarily know. Heck, they might be over 40 themselves.”

In extreme cases where people just cannot seem to meet any new friends, Dr. Chum recommends placing a personal ad. “The key there is to be completely honest,” he says. “If you are not a ‘craft’ person, don’t say you’d love to get together for quilting or scrapbooking. Just come right out and say you hate anything involving needles or glue.”

The bottom line, both researchers agree, is that people need to make a concerted effort to increase their number of friends before their 40th birthday. “Your friends are going to be the ones who get you through your spouse’s going to jail for embezzlement and your foot amputation,” Dr. Loyal says. “Don’t think one or two friends are enough to see you through retirement. They might die early, and you’ll be left high and dry.”

Caffeine is no match for housework

Joe is not allowed to have caffeine after 8 p.m. The first time he did, he wanted enough energy to get through his self-imposed list of tasks that evening, which had five items on it. Shortly after he'd had his caffeine fix, however, he happened to walk past his guitar and was struck with a sudden interest in playing it, though he hadn't touched it in several weeks.

"Oh, I wanna play my guitar!" he said. Whereupon he did, for the rest of the night. Not one of his five items even got another thought.

So much for the energy inducer.

The second time he had caffeine later in the evening, he couldn't get to sleep. After tossing and turning a while, he finally begged me to tell him a story. "Maybe that will help make me sleepy."

I had the perfect "story." We had recently had some discussions on the amount of work to be done routinely around the house (a lot) and who seemed to be the one always doing it (me), and he had been telling me that really he had no idea what all was involved so I should write it down for him so he would know.

"Okay, I'll tell you what I do all day long," I said "in addition to working."

And so I started with getting up and making his lunch, cleaning up after the whirlwind he created in the bathroom, sorting through the clothes and taking a load down to be washed, washing the clothes, ironing his shirts, putting away the clothes, doing errands, putting away groceries, working in the garden, making dinner, etc., etc.

"Then on Saturdays," I started -- but he had been sound asleep since "washing the clothes."

And then I was the one wide awake, thinking of all those tasks to be done the next day.

My ears are ringing

"It's so quiet here," all the neighbors said when we were looking at homes in the area.

Apparently none of them spend much time here.

Living, as we do, right at the edge of the street, there is not much that goes on that we don't hear. People talking as they walk by. Cats protesting being left out all night to fend for themselves. The garbage truck doing its compacting thing right under our bedroom windows at 5:30 a.m.

And jackhammering, as is going on right now r-r-r-right ou-ou-outside m-m-m-my w-w-w-window.

From next door, we hear the phone ring, the vacuum buzz, the video games blast, and the radio blare. We talk in whispers ourselves, afraid that our neighbors will hear what we are planning to have for dinner.

Of course, since they are renovating the old mill near us and turning it into apartments, you expect to hear some noise. I daresay that when they're done there, I will miss the beeping of trucks backing up, although this will no doubt be replaced by 147 cars beeping and honking and revving.

The other day a young couple was looking at the house for sale two doors down. They came over as I was working in the garden.

"How do you like living here?" they asked eagerly. I could tell they were impressed with the area.

"Oh, it's so quiet," I said. "You won't hear a thing."

Work bulletins

A big source of amusement at my previous job was the weekly bulletin for employees, which, as you will see, was not put out by the editors.

"On Friday, Michelle will be hosing 10 visitors in the conference room."
Yeah, it's hot, but can't they just turn on the AC?

"Tuesday, Amy's mom, will be coming to help at the preschool."
You should have listened to your grammar teacher when she talked about commas!

You had to be careful how you worded an announcement you wanted included in the bulletin, because Human Resources would put it in just the way you wrote it:

"So-and-so will be taking personal leave Thursday morning to wait for the washer repairman."
Yikes! That's a little too personal.

"So-and-so will be out Friday. Not sure of date of return."
Are we sure she will return?

Sometimes there were startling announcements of staff changes:

"So-and-so has been made interim director of finance. Congratulations, So-and-so!"
Uh, what happened to the director?

"So-and-so's last day was Thursday. Farewell, So-and-so!"
Guess the bad cafeteria food made him mad one too many times.

Other times you had no idea who the person named was:

"So-and-so's birthday is Monday. Happy birthday, So-and-so!"
I don't know who that is, but there's gonna be cake.

"The marketing assistant position is open."
We have a marketing assistant?
Not anymore, apparently.

One woman took mammograms very seriously and never failed to send the female employees little reminder notices and dire warnings about neglecting one's yearly mammogram. Around October every year, the bulletin would dutifully carry Anne's reminder that it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

"Anne is having her mammogram on Tuesday, Oct. 10. Have you had your mammogram yet this year?"

And when pressures got to be too much, we editors would fantasize about putting this notice in the bulletin:

"The entire publications department has left to start their own press and pizza parlor."

Keeping up appearances

Now that the weekend is almost here, it's time to take a break from our travel-related discussions and talk about a troubling weekend-related topic: weeds. Of course, weeds are a troubling topic not only on weekends, but that is when you run out of excuses to ignore them.

Now, keep in mind that a single yard can really make the rest of the neighborhood look bad. For instance, if everyone in your row of homes has weeds the size of Mt. Kilimanjaro growing around their porch and front door, and you have no weeds, you are not a team player. You are making everyone else look like slackers, with your weedless brick walk and your smooth, unhindered porch steps. Your home abruptly breaks the lovely, unbroken line of weed-infested yards.

Do not think that your spotless yard will incite your neighbors to get out their weed whackers and bottles of weed killer. It will only incite them to hate you. And for goodness' sake, do not organize "outdoor cleanup days" and expect people to spruce up not only their own bit of space but community spaces as well. If your neighbors do not care about their own yard, what makes you think they will care about patches they do now own? They want only to be left alone, in peace, behind their wall of weeds, possibly with an old couch or refrigerator.

Also, avoid the temptation to get your neighbors to clean up their act by sending little "helpful" e-mail messages, or notes tied to their doors, with tips on how to make a yard look nicer. This will only make your neighbors hate you even more. After a while, these messages will go into their spam file or wastebasket and will never be read, so you are just wasting your time.

Your best course of action, if you want to be considered a community member in good standing, is to let nature take back your yard. Let those weeds grow. Soon they will be tall enough to hide a couch, on which you can relax and enjoy your weekends.

On our last day in Shenandoah -- ha! I am not going to tell you about our last day in Shenandoah. Many of you have probably already written the Director of Tourism in the great state of Virginia to ask him (or her) to please clean up his (or her) act in the area, as you are tired of reading my blogs detailing the every fault of a city that cannot pronounce its (or his or her) own name correctly.

And so today we will continue the traveling/adventure theme, albeit in a completely different part of the country. So different that it is not even in this country. I am talking here about France.

As I have never been to France, this entry will either be (a) very short or (b) completely made up. (And no, in case you are wondering, the stories about Shenandoah and Staunton are not completely made up. These places do exist, and I really am married to Joe. Beyond that, I'm not saying.)

I have read that in France, it is considered impolite to (a) ask someone their name and (b) ask what they do. This readily explains why the French refer to us as "those dumb Americans." They are not allowed to ask us our names, so they make one up. It also explains why they think we are all cowboys. In the absence of any firsthand knowledge of our occupations, they go by what they see on American television.

Though the closest I have been to France is talking to a gentleman at church who is French, I imagine these cultural restrictions make for very short conversations between natives and foreigners.

Dumb American cowboy: Hey, where's the Eiffel Tower?
Frenchman: (snickering) It is right behind you, monsieur (loosely translated, you idiot).
Dumb American cowboy: Oh! Didn't see it. Thanks. Say, what did you say your name was?
Frenchman: (runs, screaming)

These conversations, of course, merely reinforce the opinion of the French that Americans are rude and uncultured. They also make Americans wonder just what is in all that famous French wine, anyway, and where they can get some.

But if the French would just loosen up a bit and relax these restrictions, imagine what enlightening conversations could be possible between us:

Dumb American cowboy: Hey, where's the Eiffel Tower?
Frenchman: (snickering) It is right behind you, monsieur.
Dumb American cowboy: Oh! Didn't see it. Thanks. Say, what did you say your name was?
Frenchman: Armand. And yours?
Dumb American cowboy: George.
Frenchman: I knew it!

Dining out

After our escape from the trolley ride in Staunton, we went to eat at a place called The Pullman, which used to be the train depot. When we went in, we were right in the bar, and we awkwardly tried to figure out if we were supposed to seat ourselves, or even if we wanted to seat ourselves in the bar area. A female voice yelled from across the room to ask whether we wanted to sit down.

No, thanks, we prefer to just stand here awkwardly.

We were making for the nearest seat when she yelled, as an afterthought, that we could sit inside if we wanted.

So we made our way through the bar, with the few patrons who were there watching us the whole way, and entered the dimly lit dining room. Here there was a sign that commanded us to wait to be seated, so we obediently waited. When no waitress was forthcoming, we debated whether we should seat ourselves. "But the sign says to wait," I said. I was born with that gene that does not allow disobedience to signs. People, yes -- signs, no.

So we continued to stand awkwardly, every now and then peering back into the bar in hopes that the yelling waitress would come to our rescue. Another waitress appeared, carrying a tray, and we breathed a sigh of relief. Surely she would help us in our predicament.

But she went right on by us, although she did appear to wonder what we were doing just standing around in the doorway. Finally, just when I was ready to grab a menu and sit down -- in direct defiance of the "please wait" sign -- the yelling waitress came in.

"Oh, are you ready?" she said.

No, we just wanted to see what you've done with the decor. Of course we're ready!

And so we were seated, thankfully without having to break any sign instructions. The woman behind us was furiously snapping pictures of the restaurant, like she was a paparazzo in training, although we could see nothing that was particularly picture worthy. "Keep your eye on that fake tree over there," I whispered to Joe. "There might be a celebrity hiding behind it."

We waited just as long for the waiter to appear as we had to be seated, and he apologized that "it was too early in the day" for him. "I hope they don't serve breakfast here," I said to Joe when the waiter had disappeared again. "He'd be asleep in the eggs."

Apparently it was too early in the day for the kitchen staff as well, because it was almost breakfast time when our food arrived. As we started in, another party was seated behind us and the bench I was sitting on was bodily picked up and moved an inch or so. I turned my head and met an enormous stomach. The owner of the stomach apologized, saying he was just trying to create some more room on his side. "Basically," said one of the others with him, "it's a matter of a fat guy not fitting into the booth."

I thought about saying "And you haven't eaten yet?" but thought better of it.

We toiled through our meal, almost falling asleep as we waited for the check. I escaped to the bathroom while Joe paid, and when I came back he wasn't there. Neither was the party containing the large-fronted man. I panicked. Had Joe inadvertently said something to offend him, and they had all carried him out to the train tracks to meet a terrible end? I called his cell phone.

"Hey," his voice said, echoing as if he were in a cave somewhere. Not the train tracks -- the underground caverns!

"Where are you?" I said frantically. Did he even know where they had taken him? Was he free to talk?

"I'm...in...the bathroom," he said.

I was so relieved I was annoyed. "The bathroom! What are you doing in the BATHROOM??"

At that point he came out of the bathroom, which I was standing right in front of, and I almost bowled him over in my relief.

"Boy, I'll have to go to the bathroom more often," he said. "I get great reception."

A ride through (endless) time

On our trip to the Shenandoah Valley, we visited a quaint little town called Staunton, whose motto is "We Don't Know Our Name Has a 'U' in It." It is pronounced "Stanton," for reasons no one can adequately explain and which probably the original settlers did not even know. But this quaint little town has several interesting attractions, one of which is a trolley ride, which we were urged with great excitement on the part of the information bureau person to take advantage of.

"Thank you," we said politely, and continued to browse through the dining brochures.

Sensing our lackluster interest, he said, "It's a great way to see the town while giving your feet a rest."

"Well..." we said, beginning to relent. Our feet were tired.

"And," he said, smiling, "it's free."

"Where do we sign up?" I said.

When we got on the trolley, there wasn't room for us both to sit down. However, the trolley sat for a while, and the longer it sat the more people decided this was where they wanted to get off. And so half the trolley population ended up disembarking. Now I can't be sure, but this might possibly have had something to do with a woman near the front who was pontificating, in a very loud voice, about the wonders and amazements of the great city of Staunton. At first I took her to be the tour guide, but it was clear she was giving her personal opinion about the city, which was very high indeed, although she was quick to point out, several times, that she was not a native of the area. No higher praise could be given an adopted land than she gave. And when she ran out of things to say about the city, she started right in on her own personal history.

I have noticed that there is a direct proportion between the private nature of a topic of conversation and how loud one's voice is when speaking on the topic. I have also noticed that it is not the same proportion one would expect, that is, the more private something should be, the more it is not. We heard details about the woman's marriage, which brought her to Staunton. About the children, who were numerous. About the divorce, which sadly took her away from her beloved town. Mothers of small children were covering the children's ears.

I was fearful that, in the woman's desire to praise the staff of the hospital of Staunton, we would hear all the details of her six C-sections, but mercifully the trolley was ready to be on its way and she had to get off. Instantly someone uttered, "Amen!"

We had thought there would be a replacement guide, who would, we hoped, stick to the usual tourist topics -- "Staunton has a population of 4,000, made up chiefly of students, tourists, and stray dogs" -- but none came, and off we went. Then we thought that perhaps the driver would give us a narrative about the town. In vain we waited for someone -- anyone -- to tell us something about what we were seeing as we drove. By the third stop, we knew we would not be getting any information other than what the pontificating woman had imparted. This annoyed me. "This is supposed to be a tourist attraction!" I fumed to Joe. "Why don't they tell us some tourist stuff?"

"For a free ride, you expect Charles Kuralt?" he said.

As stop after numbing stop went by and people got on and off -- including a woman with several fishing poles, although there was no body of water bigger than a puddle in sight -- we fell into a sort of trolley trance. We couldn't even eavesdrop on anyone else's conversation to relieve our boredom, as those immediately around us were speaking in sign. "Remind me to take sign language lessons," I muttered to Joe. "If people are talking about me, I want to know."

The restaurant where we had planned to eat suddenly came into view, and though it was only 4 in the afternoon, Joe jumped up and yanked on the rope to let the driver know we wanted to stop. "Not here!" I whispered vehemently. "It only stops at scheduled places!"

He had time for a quick look of panic at this faux pas before we all lurched forward as the trolley screeched to a halt. "You want out here?" the driver snarled, and everyone looked at us with disdain.

"Yes, thank you," we mumbled as we made our escape.

"Whew," said Joe. "I'm glad it was free, but I would have paid to get off that thing."