My life is a sitcom.

Oh, you will laugh.  If you are my neighbor Patti, you will laugh out loud.  So loud, in fact, that my poor cat across the street will hide under the car and refuse to come out until next Thursday.  You will laugh at me rather than with me, but so be it.  I am the new Mr. Bean.  I am all three characters in “Three’s Company” rolled into one.  I am Cliff, the mailman, from “Cheers” and the world is populated with Carla’s, mocking me incessantly, but with good reason.   Stupid rookie Gringo tourist moves can no longer account for my level of loserdom. Now, I have all new stupid Yankee tourist moves.  My head doth hang in shame.  But, hey, things aren’t all bad.  At least it’s “bloggable.” 

(Aside: If you are a regular reader… just so you aren’t too confused by the sequence of events, here is a little disclaimer.  We’ve been to Belgium, France, and London already.  That blog post is on the way.  But the last couple of days were so wrought with potential for a good story that I just had to tell it while it was still fresh in my mind.  So the next post will cover those other locations.  This post is about yesterday and today in Cornwall, England.  In truth, I am afraid I have lost the majority of my readership, so for those two or three of you hanging in there I wanted to Give Good Blog for once, just to keep you coming back for the last few posts.)

So the train journey from London to St. Ives near Land’s End in Cornwall is about a four and half hour affair.  We could only go about eighty percent of the way by train because there are no car rental agencies in St. Ives, and we are driving the next few legs.  So we had to get off about an hour early and rent a car in Plymouth. Why rent a car at all?  Why not just take the train everywhere?  Don’t look at me.  Carol does the planning (and I am eternally grateful and in her debt for that) and she says the car is necessary.  So get over it.  Move on.  There is nothing to see here.

The car ride from Plymouth to St. Ives would be about two hours.  “But two hours does not equal twenty percent of four and a half hours,” you say?  Well, on these roads, let’s just say the car isn’t quite as efficient as the train. So add in half an hour for transport between train and car and for the requisite rental signatures, and we have a six hour trip. Oh, and there is the time on the underground in London to get to Paddington Station (I know, adorable…) Oh, and there is the time waiting for the train as you don’t want to push it and so you have to get there a bit early.  So seven hours, right?  Do I really have to answer that?  Well yes, I do, because I have fooled you into thinking that this is going to be a rant about an incredibly long day of traveling that took much longer than it should have.  In reality, this is a rant about an incredibly long day of traveling that took just about as much time as we expected but instead came with a few surprises that made it feel like much longer than it should have.  And then the story continues into the next day where I am bludgeoned by a rat, and then thoroughly outsmarted by an inanimate object.  Intrigued?  No?  Well, keep reading anyway.

We got to Plymouth about a half an hour late due to train delays.  The delays weren’t actually the national rail’s fault.  There was some sort of “Burning Man” type music festival out in the middle of nowhere. Droves of college kids were riding the train and drinking copious amounts of alcohol and crowding the train so much that Al Jankovic’s “Another One Rides the Bus” came to mind.  Loading and unloading that circus took so much extra time that the normally well orchestrated schedule of trains merging onto each others' tracks was disrupted enough to slow us down considerably.  This detail is important for two reasons.  

First, consider that Carol’s suitcase was too fat to fit in the overhead compartment, and so therefore had to sit on the luggage rack at the end of the train car along with the dozens of cases of beer that the festival-goers saw fit to cart along.  Really, I should say that the overhead compartment was too small to fit Carol’s perfectly normal-sized suitcase.  But regardless of semantics, her luggage was twenty rows back and out of sight.  Now you are thinking, “Oh no, this isn’t going to be a lost luggage story, is it?”  You bet your sweet butler/buttress it is.  The college kids, being highly intelligent and efficient creatures, decided it best to use an assembly line to offload everyone’s luggage and tents and sleeping bags and significant others and beer cases and whatnot, rather than use an everyone-grab-your-own-stuff type of approach.  Well everything including the kitchen sink was unloaded from the train car a few stops ahead of our own.  You guessed it.  Carol’s suitcase was too.  Thankfully, I too went to college.  Whether that means I am a logical thinking person who anticipates events, or instead it simply means that I know how your average drunken concert-goer thinks, is immaterial.  The point is, I had an inclination just in time, and I ran off the train to confirm my suspicions.  I retrieved the suitcase that never should have been off-loaded in the first place.  Crisis averted.  Lost luggage, yes, but only lost for a matter of seconds.  I’m not sure what we would have had to do to retrieve that thing otherwise.  When we finally found it, Carol’s clothing probably would have been replaced by a half-filled bong, a ream of rolling papers, and a couple of Woodstock shirts.  On second thought, maybe I should have let it go…

As pointed out previously, there was a pair of reasons that the concert-goers story was told herein.  The second bit would eventually have a greater overall impact than the first.  As I said, due to the presence of our fellow passengers, we were half an hour late getting into Plymouth. That thirty minutes would end up being key to what happened next.  We tried calling the rental car company many times to inform them of our delay and to ask them to please hold our car for us until we arrived.  But never once did anyone pick up the phone.  We paid a taxi driver ten bucks for the less than one mile ride to the Bus Depot where Hertz Rent-a-Car has their headquarters.  Think trailer on a dirt lot, and you’ve pretty much nailed the picture.  There was one shiny new car sitting in the lot next to the trailer.  That must be the one we reserved!  Well, yes, and no.  A couple was in the office and just finishing up their rental when we arrived.  They drove off in that car.  No sweat, there must be a fleet out back.  Our turn.

Well, again, yes and no.  That car could have been ours.  Instead, it seems that there were no other available cars, our reservation notwithstanding.  Actually, there was one car, but it had officially surpassed its mileage limit and was to be sent back to Volkswagon as it was no longer legal for Hertz to rent it out.  We couldn’t have it.  There was nothing they could do about it.  They phoned a few other agencies in a few other towns.  Nobody had a car for us.  Carol got her game face on.  They balked, “Would you be OK driving to Truro and picking up another car there?”  No.  Where the heck is Truro anyway? Oh, I see, it’s only an hour out of way?  No.  Carol was ready to make one of the Hertz employees taxi us to St. Ives in their own personal vehicle and then have a couple of them drive down the next day with an actual rental car.  This shall not stand!

Long story short, they gave us the car they couldn’t give us.  Oh yes.  She’s that good.  That was yesterday.  We drove it to St. Ives.  Well, I drove it to St. Ives.  Carol isn’t getting anywhere near the steering wheel in a car on these crazy backwards British roads.  I can’t blame her.  I’m stressed out just writing about it.

In any case, they told us someone would call us today to make arrangements to swap our car for another.  Nobody called.  We called them. No answer. We called again.  Someone actually answered.  They’ll get back to us.  They didn’t.  We called again.  “Oh, so someone is already on their way with another car? Thanks for the call (you %^&#)!”  “Can you be at your hotel in 40 minutes?” they ask.  No worries that we’d rather be sightseeing than waiting around for a car that should have been there yesterday or at the very least three hours ago.  But sure, we’d accommodate.  An hour goes by.  No car.  Although a sweet Ford Focus keeps driving by our window and I wonder if that is for us, and if the giant sign marking our hotel isn’t obvious enough for the rental car agent to find her way? 

She drove by the inn three or four times, but couldn't find Tregony anywhere.

Yup.  She finally shows.  Now we have a new car.  Only this time it is a manual transmission.  “I hope that’s OK?”  Sure, I’m already dealing with driving on the wrong side of the road on roads that are too skinny for bikers much less automobiles and dealing with trying to judge how wide the car I’ve never driven before is on my left side as the steering wheel is on the right.  Why not just add a stick shift at my left hand and a super-loose clutch on these crazy hills to the mix?  No worries.  I’ll only be driving about a thousand miles in the next week.  What if I didn’t know how to drive a manual?  Then what would they have done?  Breathe.  It’s all good.

Well, no really it isn’t.  You see, by the time the car swap finally transpired, I was already a bit dodgy from the happenings of the morning.  “Do tell…” you interject.  As well you should.  For the story gets better.  “What about the inanimate genius?  I heard tell of a killer rat!” you interpose.  In due time…

Backing up (I giggle here, at this particular phrase, for reasons unbeknownst to you now. But the phrase will soon, from you, also induce a giggle).  Backing up a bit, Carol and I fancied a short walk in town after breakfast.  It was lovely, wasn’t it?  Brilliant, really.  Oh. Sorry.  My inner Brit went “outer” there for a second.  Carol mentioned casually, as we were strolling along the beach, that this place must really be hoppin’ in the later months of summer as English schools don’t get out until mid-July and so nobody must be “on holiday” yet.  “Wasn’t it great that we had the town to ourselves?”  There was no proverbial wood on which to knock. When it was time for lunch, the whole family retraced our steps, heading for that cute little Cornish pasty shop that we had seen earlier.  Only now, about two hours later, the town was packed.  School must have gotten out in the interim.  It was wall-to-wall tourists.  It was a shoving match to get to the pasty shop (which would mean something completely different across the Pond in the States, but here only means a shop where they sell meat filled pastries).  But unwieldy crowd or not, we persevered and made it to our intended destination.  We ordered meat pies for three of us and a pizza, both for Josh and as insurance for me, just in case my worst fears about meat pies came true and they really were as “pasty” as I imagined. 

Here they are, in all of their splendor.  Having never been to England, I had no idea of the connection between "Cornish" anything and the region of Cornwall.  Couldn't have given you a reason why I thought cornish game hens should involve "corn" (perhaps the hens were corn fed)?, but some things you just never really think about, I guess.

The store didn’t accept credit or debit cards.  Not that this was surprising.  I knew they wouldn’t the moment I remembered that we had spent our last pound-note on dinner the night before.  Sadly that moment came only after we had already ordered our pasties.  “OK, you guys stay here.  I’ll run to the nearest ATM and be right back.”  Hah!  The nearest cash machine wasn’t in the post office three blocks away as the pasty man suggested.  That was only for citizens of the United Kingdom.  No, I had to run fourteen blocks.  Granted these are shorter blocks than those in big cities.  But the streets are made of cobbled stone and so footing is not easy, especially when one has a neglected broken metatarsal.  And lest you forget, I feel it prudent to remind you that the roads were so laden with tourists that I would often have to stop and wait a few seconds for the hoards to pass by before continuing upstream like a salmon on a mission.  I dodged strollers and hurdled dog leashes and hopped fences and made like a halfback without his lead blockers.  I ran like a puppy amongst a beach full of pigeons.  But by the time I finally got my cash and got all the way back to the pasty shop, it was too late.  The shop had closed.  Carol and the kids had flown home to Marin and 2013 was but a memory.  OK, it wasn’t that bad.  But I was out of breath and the cramp in my side was very likely going to hospitalize me.  “But the rat!  What about the rat?” you insist.  Patience, grasshopper…  

The pasty shop is entirely a take-out affair.  So we find a bench on the beach to sit and eat.  Josh is busily removing all of the bell peppers from his part of the pizza and putting them on my slice.  I take that piece off his hands and begin to salivate.  I am just about to take a bite when I notice that Chloe is on the verge of tears.  “What’s wrong, sweetie?”  But before she can answer I feel a simultaneous bonk on my head and nip on my ear.  I raise my hands to my head and in that same instant, a seagull rips the entire pizza slice from my hand and flies off over the water.  “What the hell was that?” I ask, as if I haven’t already put two and two together.  Chloe chimes in.  “That’s what just happened to me,” she says.  Her pasty is gone.  Her head hurts.  These birds mean business.  A local is standing in his doorway smiling at us and nodding.  “Cheers!” he offers.  This has happened here before.  In retrospect, perhaps this is why the bench was empty even with throngs of people milling about.  Thanks for the warning, redcoat.  There really ought to be signs posted.  The seagulls are everywhere.  “Run for it!”

Here's the bench we were sitting on.  This was taken the next day to document the scene of the crime.  You will notice that one of the gulls is standing there in the background mocking us.

They wait on the roof of the nearby ice cream stand and swoop when you aren't looking.  This can't be either of our birds.  They would have to be much fatter than this after feasting on our lunches.

Well, nothing more gets swiped.  We eat standing in a parking lot a bit farther from the ocean.  Only one bird hangs around to pester us.  But he never comes close because we are watching him and he knows it.  I’d almost rather he gets the rest of my lunch, though.  Meat and gravy pie is just not on the top of my list of culinary experiences on this trip.  It beats the andouille/sweetbread/organ sausage crap that Carol ordered in France, but not much else.  That damned bird couldn’t have stolen my pasty and left me the pizza slice?  Really it was my pride that was injured more than anything. I actually let one of those flying RATS pull the entire "trifecta" on me without any sort of retaliation.  A head blow, a pizza heist, and an ear nip?  How slow can my reaction time get?  I would have gone to another café and ordered more food, as I was still quite hungry, having lost half of my lunch, and having chosen not to eat much of the remaining half.  But I just didn’t want to brave those crowds anymore.  I’d had enough of that on the train yesterday. (“Got a suitcase jabbing me in the rear/Got an elbow in my ear/Think I’m missing a contact lens/Think my wallet’s gone/Think this bus is gonna stop again/And let a couple more freaks get on/Look Out/boom bang boom/Another one rides the busssaaaah…”) (yes, that was from memory) Better to go back to the peace and quiet of the inn and prepare myself for driving the new car.

And that would be the end of the story, if I were your average bloke.  But for me, being seagull fodder myself, as well as passing that trait down to my offspring, just wasn’t enough for one day.  No, there is still the matter of my being dumber than an inanimate object.

We jump ahead now to the scene wherein we decide to finally use the new fully NOT automatic rental car.  To set the stage, recall that the roads here are quite narrow, and the car is parked on the street rather than in a rental car parking lot where issues can be ironed out in relative safety.  Now, I own a stick shift.  And I owned a stick shift before that.  I have driven perhaps dozens of stick shift cars in my time.  The rental car in Mexico was a stick shift.  It did not have a working battery, as you recall, but the stick shift worked just fine.  The many rental cars in Costa Rica were all stick shifts. The car I just logged 9000 kilometers on in Europe was a stick shift.  I am no rookie!  OK, I think the scene is sufficiently set.

I drove the car a few yards until I got to a driveway, which I turned into in order to perform a three-point turn, which would of course allow me to turn around and proceed in the correct direction.  I didn’t pull in very far, because there was a car in the driveway, and really, how far do you need to pull in, just to back up, right?  The back of the car was still squarely on the street.  There was only one small problem.  I couldn’t back up. The car simply would not go into reverse.  According to the symbols on the stick, it was one of those transmissions where you push as far left as possible and then forward (where first gear would normally be, only farther left).  It wouldn’t budge.  Now I do understand that most of these types of sticks involve pushing down on the stick as your push left and forward.  I knew this.  But there was simply no way to push it down.  Nor could you pull it up, though that seemed crazy, it was worth a shot.  Nope.  Carol tried.  Nothing.  Was it perhaps that the stick was on my left and by some bizarre reason Ford had not bothered to change the markings on the shift handle, but really things were completely reversed?  We tried hard right and forward.  Nope.  Hard left and back?  Nope.  What the hell, try hard right and back.  Nope.  

By this time the woman who owns the car in the driveway has of course entered her car and wants to get out of her driveway but isn’t going anywhere as I am blocking her path.  In addition, a line-up of cars is now waiting for me on the street and the driver in front is looking a bit impatient and agitated.  There is a gaggle of women sitting on the lawn opposite the driveway, watching the goings-on with great interest and not just a little disdain in their eyes.  As panic starts to set in I of course start cursing the machine and barking orders at my family.  Wave the people on, for Pete’s sake!  You, in the back seat!  Stop talking, I’m trying to concentrate!  What is the problem with this *#&$ing car!!!  The lineup skirts by me upon Carol’s signal.  But then another lineup forms, and then another going in the opposite direction.  I’ve opened the window to explain to the woman in the driveway that the car isn’t cooperating.  I swear I’ve driven before.  Now my swearing is audible to the flock of ladies across the street.  I try the same things I’ve tried on 36 previous occasions, hoping that the 37^th time will be the charm.  I’m starting to sound like an English sailor, as I’ve exhausted my American curse words and have started in on the juicy British ones.  The ladies on the lawn are looking a grisly combination of horrified and thoroughly amused.  

After what feels like weeks, I finally give up what remains of my pride.  I make Carol get in the driver’s seat.  She tries all possible combinations.  Nothing.  I implore her to put it in neutral but she keeps trying all of the options I’ve already exhausted.  Carol now sounds like the sailor.  OK, maybe not.  But I imagine her in a cute little sailor number just to get my mind off the present situation.  She eventually puts it into neutral and with a bit of rocking back and forth in the gutter, I am finally able push the car just enough to finally get it out of the driveway so the woman can leave, but not before I’ve had haunting visions of the last time I was rocking a rental car back and forth in the gutter (see “Stuck in a Ditch” – Costa Rica style).   We illegally park the car in front of the inn so Carol can run back up to the room and get her phone and call Hertz. A policeman almost immediately drives by and signals to me to move along, so I do the only thing I can do and pull into the alley next to the hotel, knowing full well that I’ll have to back out again.  Carol comes back.  Her phone was in her purse all along.  But too late, we’re stuck again.  Carol calls the office, but of course, they don’t answer.  They never answer the phone.  Then Carol has another one of her strokes of genius.  The woman who had come to swap cars with us had called us on the way, as she was unable to find our hotel.  She had hung up before actually speaking to Carol, presumably because that was the moment she actually finally noticed the enormous sign outside the building.  But that had lodged her number in Carol’s phone memory.  So Carol called the woman’s private cell phone instead of the Hertz office, and remarkably, the woman picked up.  

“How do you get this damned vehicle in reverse?” Carol asks in a sweet unassuming voice that only she could muster under said circumstances.  “What do you mean there is no trick? We’ve tried everything.”  Well, it turns out that the car wasn’t completely devoid of a backing-up gear.  It was just hidden where only Brits and other crazy people could find it.  Do you know that leathery material that kind of makes a skirt around the stick at its bottom, hiding the inner workings of the transmission from the cabin of the car?  Well on this particular model, if you grab that skirt and pull up as you push the stick left and forward, then “voila”, reverse is yours.  The stick doesn’t move at all as you pull on the skirt.  Some sort of voodoo magic engages the gearing.  Now I don’t know if this is some sort of newfangled invention that all the latest car models have or if this is just a British thing.  I don’t know if I’m the only loser who has yet to come across one of these gizmos (we will not be counting Carol amongst the losers… she simply has interests in areas other than automobiles and so wouldn’t be privy to such information.)  But whether or not I should have seen one of these suckers before is beside the point.  If you haven’t been told how it works, you could be sitting there all day and never figure it out.   I mean who the heck came up with this thing?  What was wrong with the old way of getting into reverse?  I’ve been completely and utterly outsmarted by a car.  Stupid Yankee.  Backing up a bit (see, I told you that phrase was worth a giggle), I'd like to remind you of the flying rat incident, and point out in my defense that perhaps the reason I could not outsmart the car was that I was recently dealt a blow to the head by a seagull.  Although I guess that means I was always dumber than the bird.

See what I'm pointing at.  You actually have to grab the scrotum and yank up before engaging the shaft.

So there’s my story.  The rest of the time in Cornwall shall have to wait.  I hope you’ve thoroughly enjoyed my laying it all out for you.  I am certain whatever respect you had for me has now flown off with that flying rat-gull.  But at least, hopefully, you were entertained.  I shall deny everything when my grandchildren ask.  I will tell them that Josh wrote this whole thing in my voice to get back at me for denying him a Coke with his pizza.  Tally-ho!