mikeswitzer.com

Day 4 goes fairly slowly for me – I get to see my family again tomorrow so the anticipation makes it creep by.. Eventually though, we start to leave.

Here’s the plan – we (my boss and I) leave Maine at 6pm – we drive to Boston, and stay overnight – then we get the flight back to Minneapolis the next day and drive home.

Now, my boss has a track record of getting lost/missing flights/claiming countries as his own while away on business, so everyone I work with had started to run a book on the odds of me, a.) Getting home on time and b.) getting home at all.

But as it happened, we had a fairly easy run down to Boston, then we dropped off the rental car and I called the hotel. It was the first time I’d been in a big city since we arrived in the States and I was keen to see how the friendly geniality of the Mid-West was matched on the East Coast.

“Hello – It’s Mike Switzer, I’ve got a room with you tonight and was hoping you could pick us up from the Enterprise Car Rental depot at the airport?”

“Where?”

“Enterprise – The Car Rental Place? Enterprise?”

“He’sonhisway (click – buzzzzzzzzzz)”

Now – if I were back in Wisconsin she would have already asked my entire family history and invited us around at Thanksgiving for cheese and turkey.. And cheese..

So I realized pretty quick that this wasn’t Kansas anymore (or Wiscon- oh, you know what I mean).

We got back to the hotel, and I checked into my room on the 5th floor. (In Wisconsin they don’t have hotels that go over 3 floors – any higher than that you expect oxygen and a candy to suck in the elevator to stop your ears popping.)

My boss had decided we should go into Boston to eat – he’d been told about a pizza place that was ‘the Best in Boston’, but he could only remember it was in Boston, sold pizza, and began with an ‘R’.

Strangely, the cab driver couldn’t help us. Partially because he didn’t have enough information, mainly because he didn’t care.

Over the course of the drive I began to think of this guy as our own Han Solo. Mainly because he was driving fast enough that everything was a blur outside, also because every time he changed lanes at that speed I made a noise like Chewbacca.

So, as all four wheels hit the ground again, we got out. He’d dropped us on Hanover Street which was apparently where all the best restaurants were. We started to walk down the street, and I gazed around in a state of shock. In all seriousness – I was back in London, England. The architecture – the market stalls – the nightlife – the lack of space – the people bumping into me every three to five seconds. It was stunningly similar on several levels. I turned to tell my boss how amazing I was finding this, and he’d gone.

I knew I should have got that shock collar.

So my boss (who is from Wisconsin) has stopped some lady in her tracks and is asking her if she knows any pizzeria’s that begin with the letter ‘R’. Amazingly – she does. Even more amazing – She knows the specific place we’ve been looking for. She starts to describe directions and my boss asks if she’s walking that way. She is, and so he decides to walk with her and ask how her life is going in general. (You see? You though I was exaggerating earlier – but I’m not – Wisconsinites love everybody. I believe Barney the dinosaur was born in Green Bay for that very reason..)

So she’s talking to my boss about her education, her career aspirations – while maintaining a look like she’s worried he’s just getting details for the ransom note. I’m hoping we find the place before he asks what type of cheese she likes – and we do.

And the advertising was correct. It was amazing pizza (Regina’s pizzeria if you’re interested). A 20 minute line outside, but every person said it was worth the wait – eventually we got in and watched the Olympics while we ate our Supreme Pizza.

..Then my boss started cheering the US ladies volleyball team, on his own, in a pizza bar in a back alley in Boston.

Where’s Han Solo when you need him?

There were really two ‘events’ that happened yesterday, but I’m going to have to tell them in reverse order because my favourite happened first.

In the evening, we went to see Baseball. It was my first ever live game and I want to be clear I’M EXTREMELY GRATEFUL. The company paid for us to go see it, and I genuinely appreciated it.

…Having said that…

If I think twice about going to see a movie that’s three hours long – why, WHY would I sit looking at a baseball game for three hours? When, for at least 90 minutes of that, I’m watching guys stretching – without actually playing anything?

In order to fill the silence, they have little mini-games and so on. For example, at one point they wheeled on a giant shopping cart and someone tried to throw balls into it to win a shopping spree. Another time someone had to pitch three balls through a hole to win a car. Now I’m sure ‘The Price Is Right’ had it’s time and place. But that time wasn’t last night, and the place wasn’t in a field.

Then they have the entertainment. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I’m partial to standing in front of a crowd myself and telling a few jokes (and if you think a baseball game seems to run too long, you should see my act), so I’m not about to criticize someone that tries to entertain in the immediate vicinity of a large group of men with wooden bats –

But – He was called ‘The Wonderful Christopher’. And, in fairness, when he walked onto the pitch with three man-sized puppets strapped to him – all dressed as members of the Village People – I looked to the sky and thought ‘..wonderful.’ So I guess that’s truth in advertising.

At that point, my boss decided to starting dancing to ‘YMCA’. Now – in and of itself, this is a questionable judgement choice – but he then started to shout at the rest of the audience to join in. I remember him saying ‘Wow! What a boring section I’m in’. I remember that as unusual because it wasn’t just our section. No-one else in the entire stadium was dancing. Except my boss. Who was sat next to me.

Now – I don’t talk about my boss when I’m writing because.. well.. he’s my boss. I’ll either say something nice as I sound like a suck-up, or I say something negative and he ceases to be my boss shortly after. So let me step through this particular career-limiting minefield carefully..

Firstly, my boss is a really nice guy. A genuine, friendly, Midwestern gentleman who is always respectful and polite to people no matter how much they don’t want to be spoken to.

Secondly, he’s a little bit crazy. He wasn’t dancing to ‘YMCA’ to show off, or get friends, or as an audition – He was dancing because he’s full of the joys of life. Because he wanted to dammit, and that’s his right as an American.

So basically what I’m saying is – you know that crazy Uncle you visit every Christmas? The one that smiles just a bit too much?

…That’s my boss.

So the reason I’m telling you all this is because of the other thing that happened (which actually happened before the baseball, remember – I just prefer telling it this way).

We went to visit a customer – and on the way stopped for some lunch. There were a few of us, and the Maine-iacs amongst us took us to a Lobster shack down next to the bay in Freeport, Maine. On a more serious note – it was beautiful. And as I sat in the sun, with the sea-breeze in my face and lobster dribbling down my chin, I reflected on the fabulous scenery surrounding me and could really see why Stephen King sets all his stories about crazed murderers there. (Note – For legal reasons I should point out he doesn’t set them all at that particular lobster shack – just in Maine).

So I ordered the lobster roll. (Or in Maine-ian ‘lobsta roll’) and my boss ordered the lobster dinner (‘lobsta dinna’). Eventually it arrived and he started tearing apart the lobster and eating it.

Now while we’d been waiting I’d noticed the boss of this place wandering around. I noticed him because he was shouting at the customers in line, the directions for ordering. (I know – it doesn’t sound difficult. But I think he’d made it difficult just so he had a reason to shout at these customers). So – you had to go to one counter if you wanted food, and another if you wanted the lobster dinner. You would get a number from each counter and had to wait until your number was called (and then check it was the correct number from the correct counter).

Then he was telling people where they should stand so that they didn’t get in the way of the other people he’d stood elsewhere. It didn’t seem to occur to him that the same thing would happen whether he was shouting at them or not.

Anyway – my boss is eating his lobster, and has nearly finished, when this guy comes over. He says to my boss – ‘Do you want me to show you how to do that?’ My boss (ever the nice guy) says yes. And the guy picks up the tail of the lobster – then says ‘Do you believe in Magic?’ He gets the answer yes again and then twists the tail in a certain way and a ‘hidden’ piece of meat pops out. My boss is dutifully impressed which, unfortunately, encourages the guy. Then he tells my boss to hold another piece of the lobster like it were a book (at which point I would have laid back, put it over my face, and gone to sleep – but I guess that’s just me). He does – and he’s told to ‘open the book’ which then exposes even more hidden meat.

The guy then picks up the rest of my boss’s lobster and starts opening it up all over the place to expose more meat. My boss says that he’s beginning to believe in magic, and the guy says ‘You know what you get if you don’t fully believe?’ We say no, and he cracks open the last piece of lobster – which is empty. He says ‘Nothing’.

As seafood based magicians go, that’s a terrible ending to your show. Open the last bit and pull out a dove – now that’s magic. (And I know ‘Do you know what you get if you don’t fully believe? – Doves.’ Doesn’t make sense, but that’s not the point.

And then he was just standing there, watching my boss eat, like he wanted to make sure he ate every part of the meat he’d just discovered for him by pawing through someone else’s dinner.

Eventually we finished eating and my boss went off to use the restroom. I had visions of him entering a dingy poorly-lit room and the guy following him in going ‘Do you want me to show you how to do that?’.

Of course, that would pale in comparison to him asking, in that situation, if you wanted to see something magic…

Okay, so nothing much happened on day 2 until the evening. We went out to a place called ‘J’s’. After driving through the traffic into Westbrook, we pulled into a parking lot next to a huge, glamorous looking floating restaurant at the edge of the bay. I looked in awe as we walked up to it.

Then straight past it.

..Then into the shack just behind it.

It was one of those places where you ask for a table for six, and they haven’t ever had that many people sat around a table so they tell you then can only do four at a time. You have to actually point out that two fours would- almost definitely- be more than six, before they’ll listen.

Then we ordered the food – and, all joking aside, it was amazing. And, naturally, we started to have the conversation about why I don’t sound like everyone else. We’re usually on the third ‘English’ question before they stop, frown, look quizzical and then say ‘but why Eau Claire?’. I explain the story – which is that my beautiful wife knew someone who had never met his Father. Ultimately, he traced him back to Chippewa County and showed Liz the pictures he had been sent. She fell in love with it, so when we came to look at places in the US – that was the first area we looked at.

..So when I next see you – don’t ask. Just don’t. Or at least wait until the fifth or sixth question..

The natural progression of this conversation was then talking about the way I can’t pronounce words correctly. Or to put it a different way – I can’t speak like an American. Or to put it the way we would in England – I speak properly. Using real words and everything… If you ever hear me say ‘yo, wussup’, just kill me.

So we went through ‘tomato’, ‘aluminium’, ‘colour’ (talking about spelling just to spice up the conversation a little), and obviously the definition of ‘football’. Then one of the guys I’m talking to is pleased about something witty I said (I’m also pleased, although not entirely surprised – I’m hilarious. Just ask my Mum (sorry – Mom).)

(Separate note – Word™ has now underlined half of what I’ve written in red, because apparently inventing the fricking language doesn’t matter if Microsoft have subsequently bought a majority of the shares in it.)

Anyway – so I say something witty and the guy I’m talking to, puts his hand in the air – palm towards me. I raise my hand and go to slap his, but he kind of moves his hand backward as I slap so the net effect is that I’m pushing his hand backward with my own. Basically, it looks like we’re about to start dancing. But that’s not the point.

He then realizes we didn’t connect and puts his hand in the air again, then – and this is my point – says ‘Do you have these in England?’
I, naturally, reply ‘What? Hands?’ – He isn’t quite as impressed as he was with my earlier wittiness and says ‘No – we call this “High Five” and do it when something good has happened.’

Now – for those of you that don’t know/care – we DO have hands in England. We have also heard of slapping. Our ‘moving picture’ devices have seen those ‘Happy’ days you used to enjoy so much. And, for that matter, we are aware that you have a bar in Boston where everybody knows your name (which doesn’t sound inviting, it sounds creepy. Is this an early example of identity theft?)

..So please don’t act like I just jumped off the London bus from merry old English-town.

But I didn’t tell him that. I just said that in England we did it differently. We call it a ‘face-five’. It still involved my hand, but he didn’t need his hand – just his face. And then I sat and desperately hoped he’d ask to see how it worked…

Much respec’ to the Eau Claire massive. This is Switzer signing off – Peace. Out.

08/11/08 02:26
So I leave my house in the wonderful rented car we picked up on Sunday. I’m enjoying the feel of air-conditioning that actually works. I turn it up in an effort to get it to blow my eyelids enough to keep them up. Neeeed Sleeeeep.

08/11/08 03:35
I’m still driving to Minneapolis St. Paul airport. My boss has given me directions on how to get there – I’ve printed out directions from Google Maps – and the lady on my GPS is giving me directions. All three are entirely different. Wonderful. Luckily the surge of adrenaline when I realize this is enough to wake me out of my semi-slumber and encourage me to make one of those split second decisions that almost always end up being wrong. Given that;

a. My boss missed his plane as he went the wrong way.
b. The Google Maps printout is smudged, and
c. The lady on the satnav is pretty firm in her demands that I ‘turn right NOW’ and so on –

I chose the satnav. 10 minutes later I’m driving through the center of St. Paul. I’m now even more pleased I move to Eau Claire. Eventually I wind up in some parking lot where a sign says I should leave the rental car.

I get out and walk to the Avis rental desk – to find no-one there. (Apparently they don’t have much of a rush at 4am). They have left two slots open – one to put the updated rental agreement through, one for the car keys. That doesn’t help me with what to do with the satnav. Eventually I disassemble it and put it through a piece at a time. I’m sure they’ll thank me later.

So now I’m in the airport at around 4am with no stores open – and no other people. There’s just me, and two security guards. I’m hoping they like the English or I may be here some time…

08/11/08 05:30
I’m sat at the gate, and it’s started to fill up. They’ve announced the flight is overbooked and they’re looking for someone to take the next flight. No-one moves. They mention a $300 voucher. Everyone moves. Some older guy beats women and kids out of the way then gets the voucher. He wanders back to his (slightly embarrassed) wife with a winning grin on his face. Then the gate attendant makes the mistake of looking like he’s going to push the button on the microphone. Instantly – everyone stands and starts trying to look like they’re not lining up yet – while being in a perfect position to line up.

He pushes the button and the queue comes together like someone cracking a whip. He announces that they are boarding people who need wheelchair access first. There’s a silent moan and the line evaporates again. I swear I hear someone say ‘stoopid disabled people’. The one lady that needs wheelchair access is let on, then we go through the same process for families with children, then first class customers, then premier customers, then people they like the look of, etc. To be clear – WE’VE ALL GOT ALLOCATED SEATS. Why the rush? Is someone bigger and stronger going to get to your seat and claim it in the name of their home country? Look – I only did that the once and she took too long to get there because of the, y’know, wheelchair.

08/11/08 06:00
Anyway – eventually we finish the airport shuffle and we’re on the plane. I’m impressed – In England you get given pretty poor quality food on airplanes. Over here the food is clearly infused with minerals for healthy growth, regrows balding hair and adds twenty years to your life. I assume that’s the way it is of course, because why else would you charge $3 for A BAG OF CHIPS. (NB – For the English, Crisps are chips; for the Americans, Chips are French Fries; for the French, … Well I don’t’ actually speak French, so Je ne parle pas de français. Although I’ve often wondered how you can get away with saying Je ne parle pas de français when clearly you parle pas de français enough to tell them you ne parle pas it. Strictly speaking I guess you should say Je ne parle pas de very much français. But in French, obviously.

08/11/08 07:20
Right – first of all it’s not actually 7:20, it’s now 8:20 because I’ve changed time zones. This is also weird – in the UK we’re all on one timezone so it never changes. Here though, you have to opportunity to LOSE AN HOUR OF WORK in travelling. Excellent! I’ve booked a days holiday on the way back so I gain an hours holiday in the other direction..

08/11/08 07:35
Now, I don’t know if it’s because people are naturally terrified on flights – but there always seems to be a tendency for people to state the obvious when we’re landing. I’ve had a nice sleep on the way (so doubling my overnight sleep from 2 hours to 4) and I’m woken by the captain telling us we’re about to start landing. Then he tells the crew to prepare for landing. Then we start to go down. Then the man next to me says to his wife ‘Looks like we’re landing’. I’m assuming he’s the alternate pilot in case the first one was sick. Then the flappy things on the wing go down. He says ‘the flaps have gone down’. As I’m about to explain to him that I’m breathing in. Now I’m breathing out. Now I’m breathing in, etc. I hear a young boy behind me say to his brother ‘everything is getting bigger’. Now assuming he wasn’t talking about the natural process of growth at his age – of course it’s getting bigger. That’s a good sign – as long as it’s not too quick. Too quick is bad. Very very bad. But a nice slow things getting biggerishness is a sign of a good landing. Followed by that uncomfortable bit at the end where you’re absolutely sure the plane is coming in at an angle and you’re about to lose a wing. Followed by the really really uncomfortable bit when you hit the ground and you’re sure the pilot is whitenuckled holding onto the joystick for dear life screaming ‘ohmygodohmygodohmygod’ until it all slows down. THAT’S why they make you put your seatbelt on – so they know you’re too far away to hear the sobbing when the engines stop.

…Or maybe that’s just me.

08/11/08 08:40
Now I’ve landed and the boarding pass tells me I need to go to concourse C from concourse A. The map I’ve found sets my mind at rest as it appears to be a distance of about two inches – unfortunately the scale is such that I find myself pretty much walking to Maine.

Eventually I admit defeat and start using those motorized walkway things. There’s a line down the middle of them. On the right, it says ‘stand’ – on the left, it says ‘walk’. Unfortunately an elderly Chinese couple in front of me have taken that to it’s logical conclusion and decided you can stand in the middle and stroll. Or meander. Or mosey. Or make me miss my flight. Luckily for them I’m English, so I just stand behind them with my ‘impatient’ face on (which involves me rolling my eyes and clenching my teeth mainly – it’s very much the same as my ‘I’m having a seizure’ face. Eventually they stop admiring the scenery of the Borders bookstore and notice the traffic behind them. Without a word, they step out of my way – I say (politely) ‘Thankyou!’ and walk past. Then I hear them talking to each other behind me – ‘Well don’t just stand behind us, you should say something!’. And – with the greatest respect in the world – the lady talking has one of those ‘old Chinese lady telling you off’ voices. Do you know the one I mean? The one that instantly makes you want to turn around and say – ‘No – no, I shouldn’t need to say anything as there isn’t a sign that says “if you see someone in your way, make them aware of it” – there are only the two signs marked ‘walk’ and ‘stand’. Neither of which you were doing! You were perambulating – you were taking a constitutional – you were on a tour of the airport – but the one thing you weren’t doing was GETTING OUT OF MY WAY!’

But I didn’t say that because I’m too polite. I just did my impatient/seizure face and moved on..

08/11/08 09:20
Eventually I find the gate and go through. Now, here’s the thing – I don’t know if anyone else gets this, but I’m going to share it with you.. Sometimes the simplest phrases make me panic. Usually when I hear someone else saying them first – that’s when I’m most likely to screw it up. So, as I’m walking to the gate I hear;

‘Good morning, Sir, How are you today?’
‘Good! And how are you?’
‘Fine thankyou’

Then the next person;

‘Good morning, Sir, How are you today?’
‘Good! And you?’
‘Fine thankyou’

So I hear this like ten times – and I prepare for this interchange to show I’m just as capable and lucid as everyone else that’s gone through before me – but that’s when I get myself so panicked about it –

‘Good morning, Sir, How are you today?’
‘Youse?’
‘Fine thankyou’

Youse? YOUSE?! What on Earth does that EVEN MEAN? And for a split second you think about going back and explaining that you actually meant to say ‘I’m fine thankyou for asking – and what about you?’ but instead your tongue swelled to three times its normal size, and in conjunction with all the fluid draining out of your mouth you ended up making a noise that sounded like ‘Youse’ – all because you wanted to fit in. Kids – let that be a lesson to you – Always walk up to gate attendants with a moistened mouth and your tongue out.

08/11/08 09:46
So now I’m on the plane, and actually typing up all these notes from earlier in the day – it’s been a fairly uneventful flight. Although, when I got on, people were in my seat so I had to do that thing where you looked at your boarding pass with a puzzled face (creased brow, squinty eyes) and say your seat number with a question mark at the end of it. Then there’s a slight pause as you desperately hope the person who is in your seat (we’ll call them the ‘thief’) says something before you have to resort to.. well.. doing the same thing again. Eventually though you must resort to pointing to the nub in the ceiling that says 7-D and asking ‘Is this seat 7-D?’

So far I’ve not encountered anyone bold enough to outright deny it.

Oh, and then the guy who sat in front of me is in the Olympics. I say that because, after he used the bathroom, he nearly dived into his seat again – and the sound of the cracking when his seat met my laptop he obviously took to be applause as he then startled wrestling the seat into submission. Eventually he stopped and went to sleep. Bless him. Well now I’m typing about what a jerk I think he is, quite literally behind his back – and at any time he could undo his belt, get out of his seat, walk around to mine and ask to read what’s on the screen of my laptop – and he’d be furious. But I just don’t care. So who’s laughing now jerkboy?

(continued on Day 2…)