99: Close Out

I’m back. It’s over. Tampa surrounds me.

I wanted to be able to continue this blog all the way from Boston to Key West and then back to Tampa, but circumstance changed that. The laptop developed a virus and no amount of alcohol consumed by its owner could help. It was sent on to Tampa and should be back in my possession for either a reformatting or ceremonial bonfire, tomorrow.

Contrary to popular opinion, not all hotels in America have computers for guests. The majority don’t. Many – a great many in the middle price range – offer wi-fi, but that doesn’t help someone on a bicycle, who no longer has his own laptop.

In any event, many of the hotels I used didn’t aspire to that middle price range and could be described, quite accurately, as shit-hole dumps. In some, I am surprised that water flowed and electricity worked. You don’t get a lot for under thirty dollars per night.

Anyway, all this is leading up to an explanation of the sporadicity (I made that word up; I am almost American and therefore entitled to ruin the English language by doing so) of posts and the diminishing quality.

Anyway, all that aside, I am back. Key West was omitted and left for another day. I detoured across Florida from Flagler Beach and came directly to Tampa, arriving here after 5,163.7miles on the road. I dread to think of the cost of the whole thing, but the technical term would be ‘A fucking lot’.

Of all the intentions listed at the beginning, most were realized. The total punctures was only 4 – all from sharp wires from rotted truck tires on the interstate shoulders out west and patched. Additionally, I lost 2 tubes due to valve separations. Including the initial tires, I used 5 but the final pair still has plenty of life. Armadillos are good, but Bontragers are better.

I have no idea how much climbing I did but, after 5,163.7 miles in all weathers and across all terrain, I lost 28 pounds and 5 trouser (waist) sizes. Being unfit beyond my comprehension at the beginning, I spent around 500 miles in the Crossroads SAG vans on the cross country portion of the trek. There being no support southwards from Boston, that 2,300 miles was all EFI, although there was a danger of ending the trip due to accident after the crash in South Carolina and when my back went out in Georgia.

So that’s all very serious isn’t it? No more. I’m almost finished sorting things out and not at all ready to return to work. Next week or perhaps the one after, I’m seriously thinking of a road trip by car, with my boots in the trunk and a bike on the back. Not far – perhaps around 3,000 miles or so, by way of several national parks.

Anyway, before I close, I’ll mention that, for anyone who liked reading Wheels on the Bike, there’s a new blog:

WWW.GrindingTheBones.blogspot.com

38: My PC Says What?

Damned computers!

Actually, it's not computers' fault – it the fault of the person who designed the software without thinking further than the end of his (or her) nose.

You might think that, with thirty years in the IT business, I'd either be an expert on how to get around the foibles or become numbed to them.

Neither.

So, when I get the zillionth email from AMEX informing me of suitable job postings within their company – which I can't access because I no longer have my User-ID or password and, to be honest, don't remember whether I ever did - I am irritated to learn that the only way to cancel the automated delivery of this email is to visit my AMEX profile and uncheck the item that authorizes email. In order to do that, I have to login with my User-Id and password; yet another example of circular logic.

It started me thinking back over all the other irritations with technology and how little effort the designers seem to put into what they intend for us to use daily. It's not always computers – software is just the most recent example of people not thinking. Similar incidents have happened many times and each sticks out in my memory, as it was so simple and yet so impossible to fix.

Imagine these...

Delta airlines' air miles account used the ZIP code from the original setup location address as some form of security PIN, but I couldn't remember where I had lived five years previously when opening the account, so I couldn't change any details or reclaim mileage. My problems was that I had somehow managed to acquire three separate accounts and wanted to merge them. Neither supervisors nor managers could help and the problem was never solved. Somewhere in the internals of their system there are still three air miles accounts bearing my name, all with different addresses, ZIP codes and mileage balances.

It's not that long ago that I spent a good part of an afternoon trying to book a Hertz rental car for collection at Auckland airport in New Zealand. After struggling with a non-intuitive dial-up system for almost an hour, constantly back-tracking to correct lost data, I reached the payment section to be told that the 'special rate' was only applicable to US residents. The site then closed. I am a US resident. I used a US credit card. I had a US address. So what was it trying to say? I never found out.

Westpac Bank Visa (Australia) list only toll-free phone numbers to call in case of emergency – but those numbers are only accessible from within Australia. The so-called 'international' numbers, which bear no relation to the toll-free ones, appear only on their web site. Who thinks to check the back of their card before traveling and ensure that all phone numbers are accessible world wide? Isn't is possible that someone might be in an emergency situation – without access to the Internet?

Everyone in the western world, I assume, has some tale concerning telephone voice menu systems. It's not simply that the required option is not obvious - some of them give no option to press keys and rely entirely on speech recognition, which fails to understand my accent. After several iterations of trying to pronounce a simple 'Yes' in a manner that the machine might accept, it will give up and allow me to press '1' instead, or even allow a person to come to the phone but, by this time, I am in no mood to be polite. What do people do, whose knowledge of the language is slight?

Some time ago, in England - my own country - I found it impossible to prove that I was entitled to open a new bank account. I could not identify myself to the bank's satisfaction. I produced a passport, credit cards, a British driving license, a British telephone statement, a contract of employment, British charge cards, British bank statements and a cheque book. One by one, each was dismissed as insufficient proof for one reason or other connected with security. The most absurd part of the situation was that I was trying to open a second account at the bank where I currently held an account that had been open for eighteen years and where I was personally known. It did not matter. Rules were rules, I was told.

Telephone credit card banking systems all require you to enter you 16-digit account number 'for faster service' but, as soon as an operator comes on the line, she demands that you dictate it to her. I have a Capital One master card and one of their phone options is to increase the credit line. I tried that and immediately heard a recording saying that it was not possible to change the credit limit in this way.

I get statements from my health insurance company, supposedly to inform me of whether they've paid a claim, how much they've paid or why they've decline it - but the numbers make no sense, the totals do not represent the figures they are supposed to include and I am bewildered. When I call, after navigating myriad telephone voice menus, I get a call center girl who knows nothing and can do no more than read to me exactly what I can already see, but not understand, from the statement. I cannot speak to a supervisor but one will supposedly call me within 24 hours. It never happens.

Citibank's system dictates that they send your new credit card by regular mail. If you are not there to receive it, you have moved or there is some other reason that it cannot be delivered, it will be returned to them and your account will be suspended without warning. It happened to me five times in a single month before a Citibank manager suggested changing my address to a friend's, where a new card could be delivered and simply reside, unused, allowing the one in my hand - sent to me at a hotel via UPS - to work.

So many telephone systems either have no listed keys entry to get a human operator that there is even a web site dedicated to what key, keys or commands one must give to summon one. It's not always '0'. Sometimes it's '00' or an asterisk or two pound keys or a combination even more convoluted and unguessable.

Orbitz travel booking site, which has multiple credit cards listed on my account, will not allow me to change the details or delete one without entering the 3-digit security code; the number printed on the back, which fades quickly. That card is destroyed, which is why I want to delete it. I have no record of the 3-digit security code – after all, they tell you not to write it down....

We're heading into the realm of science fiction as it was before computers took over the world. Our lives are controled by computers and by simpletons who are little more than mouthpieces for the machine.

In the 1980's and before, no one would actually believe that society would be so dumb that they would believe every line on a computer screen or bank statement - but now they do. Otherwise intelligent adults are convinced that anything the computer says is correct. I have listened to educated people trying to rationalize and defend what is so obviously an error – as if incorrect data is something for which the machine should be forgiven.

Where do we go from here?

I don't know.

Maybe the third world has it right.

I'm gonna go live in a hut.

37: A Town With No Beer

The disappointment is tangible.

The frustration hangs there in the air like an over ripe pear not quite fallen from its tree.

It's like the building anticipation of sex after not seeing your girlfriend for a month, waiting throughout the day for her to arrive and then hearing that she's not in the mood.

After pedaling more than seventy miles through the South Carolina heat, I arrived in Southpoint last Sunday afternoon, tired and sweaty, hungry and thirsty, to find that it resided in a partial dry county. Nothing alcoholic could be sold, served, given away or in any way dispensed, on the Lord's Day.

Suddenly, all I wanted was a cold beer. Not being able, the desire intensified until I could think of nothing except a chilled glass, frothing over as the bartender filled it.

“Where's the county line?” I asked the check in clerk, almost in desperation. Maybe it was simply over the bridge and slightly out of sight. Another five minutes' worth of pedaling.

No.

“That's what most people say,” she said with the cheeriness of one who didn't care. “Right after they stare at me for ten seconds and then wanna know if I'm joking. It's thirty miles south on the interstate. Staying or going?”

Thirty miles. By bike, tired and aching? No way.

Perhaps this explains why all the motels were cheap. The standard, familiar names were all there – Knights Inn, Days Inn and the like - surrounded by a host of others and many sported signs promising rates of $30. Probably those prices doubled or tripled on any other day.

The inability to sell booze extended into restaurants being closed altogether. “They don't do so well on Sundays," the cheery desk clerk said, "So most of 'em are shut. The ones that are open become family places and you find a lot of kids. Folks around here who like a drink go to the liquor store on a Saturday and then stay home with the TV on Sunday nights. The Lord's Day gets us all somehow.”

Who is this Lord, I wanted to demand, who said that you shouldn't drink on Sunday? Does it say that in the bible? What about other religious faiths? Maybe they don't see it the same way. Why should the city elders, or whoever they were - probably upright Christian souls - determine that everyone else should follow their religious imposition? After living in places where no such restriction existed, losing this simple ability away without warning was like regressing to childhood and having my bedtime cut by an hour.

There was no point arguing with the friendly desk clerk so, with an inaccurate grunt of, "Heathen town," I accepted the key and went to clean up. A steak was just so much meat without a nice glass of wine. Burger without the beer was only fat-loaded ground beef. It's sad, I suppose, that the absence of a bottle changed things so much.

Ruby Tuesday's was open but the bar itself remained in darkness. I sat in a booth and ordered a salad, self-righteously pretending that this enforced period of dryness was healthy. It was, of course, but just because something's good for your doesn't mean you enjoy being forced.

In a way, it was funny, I'd been dry all week for one reason or another and now, when I intended to reward myself with a glass or two of wine and a nice meal, the realities of a small town in the the bible belt had hit me.

So, fresh and entirely hangover-free, I left Southpoint earlier than intended and headed to Wilmington. Perhaps, if I'd had a drink or two the night before, I'd have left later. I'd certainly have traveled at a different rate and would've encountered the railroad crossing at a different time; a time either before the rain began or well into the storm, which means that it would've been either dry or I'd have been more careful and focused more attention on the road. With than enhanced attentiveness, I may not have skidded, lost the bike from under me and smashed my wrist and head into the ground.

The injury, although not serious and certainly not life-threatening, forced a three-day rest period, which included, due to boredom, three evenings visiting local pubs and restaurants. Southpoint's enforced Lord's Day abstinence led directly to pain and enhanced consumption.

Where's the sense in that?

Sobriety hurts.

36: Statesboro Blues

I'm trapped in Statesboro, Georgia. Not the Georgia in Russia although frequently, over the last week, I have wished to be there. No, I am in a land where the word 'ham' spans two syllables.

"Woke up this morning...."

Tuesday:
I reach Statesboro in the late afternoon, looking forward to a rest day. The sprained wrist is now almost better, but my back is beginning to stiffen. It probably needs an infusion of beer. Such demands will be met.

Familiar motel names proliferate along South Main Street: Ramada, Best Western, Days Inn, Baymont, Quality Inn and more. Budget Inn has a sign promising $29.99. I'll take it. Sixty bucks for two nights is impressively low. Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes stand in the parking lot, so how bad can it be?

Bad.

Only two light bulbs work. The towels look as though they've been used for the last two decades. Hopefully the stains on the bedspread are only water.

Those decent cars outside probably indicate a secondary use as a crack house and have little bearing on state of the motel, which might be just a cover. Should have seen the sign in small print on the door threatening 'No refunds'. Note to self: OPEN YOUR BLOODY EYES.

I'm starting to feel as though someone has hit me over the kidneys with a baseball bat. It will be good to finally reach Tampa in two weeks and visit the chiropractor. Now though, it's time for that medicinal beer.

One might think that a restaurant named the French Quarter, advertising itself in the Yellow Pages with phrases such as 'Balcony Dining', 'Authentic Cajun Cuisine' and 'Statesboro's home for live music', might embody a flavour of New Orleans.

One would be sadly disappointed.

The balcony, I am told, is not open to the public. A drunk at the bar, his face so bloated it looks sandpapered, thinks there was karaoke last week, but can't be sure. The single laminated sheet of paper that is the menu, is devoid of anything from New Orleans except gumbo and the only item not fried is the crab cake special. I ask how they're prepared - fried also? "Oh no," the under age bartender reassures me, "Sauteed."

I order a beer - bottled Sweetwater 420 Extra Pale Ale - but do not get a glass. There are glasses for wine, glasses for shots, but nothing for beer. I ask for a plastic water cup and all four regulars watch in silence as I fill it from the bottle. Maybe they think I'm gay.

Conversation around the bar concentrates on such subjects as why Person-A had to whack Person-B with a pool queue, recent fights and how many Jagermesister shots it takes to get Jeremiah really ferked erp, all at a volume great enough to wake the inhabitants of the next town. Hopefully, this is not the intelligencia of Statesboro.

Wednesday:
I can't stand up straight and even the most comprehensive stretching does no good. The back is killing me and I feel like an old man. The shower is a chest height so I have to bend and the bath moves like stepping on marshland. Finding a local chiropractor is now a requirement, rather than a wistful thought. How? Maybe the office has Yellow Pages?

I struggle up the slight incline and the desk clerk appears from a back room, as if by magic. His head is wrapped in something that could be a cross between a turban and a towel and he has a large orange paint blob where his nose meets his forehead. If I wasn't in such pain, I might have laughed. There's a pause after I tell him what I want, as though I should justify the request, but then he disappears again, leaving the back room door open. I can see nothing in the dark void but the smell that emanates threatens to dissolve the hairs in my nose. When he returns, he hands a Yellow pages across the desk and tells me to leave it in the room.

Armed with information and now in more pain that I have experienced for years, I organise a chiropractor and make my way, slowly, to his office.

It's a painful adjustment and I still hurt afterwards. Just swelling, Dr Ward said. The joints are back where they were supposed to be, he said. Take Ibuprofen, he said. Ice it every hour lying face down, he said. He said a lot of things, including that I should come back on Friday.

Some things in life are just hard and icing your own back, like applying your own sunscreen, is one of them. It's a fundamental rule of the universe - if something's good for you, feels nice and is desperately necessary - it's impossible to do. Necessity is the mother of invention though and handfuls of painkillers helped me through.

Thursday:
Back is stiff, but better and stretching helps. I'm moving from the crack house motel today. The Budget Inn has been a learning experience and I thank the owners for their material contributions to my next book. The Baymont, at the opposite end of the quality scale, offers a mini-suite, high-def TV and in-room computer, all for under $60 per night. If I have to stay in Statesboro, a little luxury will make up for the pain.

It occurs to me that I could use this time productively, by buying a computer book - C# perhaps - and learning whatever I can without actually having computer access. I'm directed to a local bookshop but, apart from fiction, they have simply a few technology reference shelves where books on photography, writing and motor mechanics sit shoulder to shoulder with the single one on computers, all mixed together in alphabetical order by authors with no concern for subject. It should surprise me, this lack of educational material, but, strangely, it doesn't.

After more pills, more icing and a sleep, I feel in need of sustenance. Across the street is RJ's, a renowned steak house and I believe a rare New York Strip and a whole bottle of Cabernet should be mine, but I am thwarted. Yes, they are the best steak house in town, I am assured, by a waiter who looks like a young church minister in training, but something persuades me otherwise when I am informed that they do not serve wine - and that is the end of my steak aspirations.

That is how I discovered my own slice of heaven in the form of Christoper's most wonderful eating and drinking establishment. People at the bar don't shout. Conversations don't include bragging about violence or bouts of drinking and customers don't look as though the task of propping up the bar all day is theirs forever.

I stay there until they close. I don't care if I have a hangover - which is just as well. Plans for tomorrow include the second and final visit to Dr Ward, resting for the day and then leave early Saturday; back on the road again....

Friday:
Fuck, hangover city. At least I can stand up. Shit, my head hurts. The adjustment helps but I am informed that yet another will be necessary on Monday. Will I ever get out of Statesboro?

I'm bored. It's not even noon. I find a local coffee shop but it serves the usual thin translucent stuff from an urn brewed at some time in the past and I have to put up with three sound sources in the form of background music, the TV and a crying baby. There's only so much thin coffee you can drink without bursting. How long do I have to wait before it's acceptable to go for a beer?

I decide to try the bike. There's a cinema two miles away so I go there and find a Books-a-Million, which has many computers books and - oh thank you Lord, I am a true believer, yes I am, whatever I said before, hallelujah - a STARBUCKS. Oh, the world is is mine, la la la. I love Statesboro.

Not for long.

I sense the onset of toothache and get back on the phone immediately. Statesboro dentists don't work weekends, I discover, and Friday is seen as one, so the earliest visit would be Monday. After the chiropractor, perhaps? Make a day of it? I call three, but all are busy for the entire week. First available appointment would be a week on Tuesday. Should I go or should I stay? I could just take more painkillers. I hate Statesboro.

Credence Clearwater revival recorded a song once called Lodi, about a town that they couldn't leave. Maybe I'll write one about this place. I could call it Statesboro Blues.

Oh - someone already did that?

35: If the World Needed an Enema...

It's rare that I find a town so deserving of the description 'no redeeming qualities', but Andrews, South Carolina, fits the bill. Looking back, Grants seems like a paradise of dining and entertainment opportunities by comparison.

There's only a single motel half a mile from the centre of town, but I doubt that there's a need for any more. There's no reason except unfortunate accident that would bring visitors to Andrews and I seriously doubt that anyone, having suffered the experience once, would voluntarily repeat the circumstance.

Considering all the aspects of services and fittings that could so easily have been missing given their monopoly on accommodation, this one was almost perfect - even to the degree of having cable TV. It's like an invisible hand had plucked a perfect country motel from somewhere and zapped it straight into Hicktown. Maybe the owners had been bad in a previous life and this was their punishment.

The two main roads, which formed the centre of town where they crossed, possessed an equal number of establishments currently not open for business and ex-business that had not possessed even that status for many years, if the crawling ivy and overgrowth of weeds covering their windows was any indication.

After traversing both roads for half a mile in either direction, the only actual restaurant I could find not covered in several years' worth of ivy and weeds, fell into the category of not open for business. No sign in the window suggested when this might change, so I suppose it's possible that in a few weeks it too may be sprouting vegetation.

Had I wanted to wash laundry, buy automobile parts, clean my truck or attend church -which, if the plethora of religious buildings and billboards was anything to go by, the locals did with great frequency - there were multiple opportunities to do so, but to sit and eat, there was only McDonald's and a miniature Subway occupying space at the back of a gas station, which eventually took my business.

To take up time, I sat in a corner booth in McDonald's to watch the people of various levels of intelligence interact with the staff, all of whom appeared, if their trousers size was any indication, to have been on a McDonald's diet for some time. After an hour I had to go; there's only so much fun I can stand without bursting.

At the far end of town, near the Food Lion grocery shop where I used up another thirty minutes of wasted life perusing the shelves, a third road shot into no man's land. No signs showed where it might go, none faced the other way to advise incoming traffic where they were unfortunate enough to have arrived and nothing controlled the priority of either road. Given that American drivers all think they have priority all the time, the resulting confusion - usually won out by over-sized trucks alternately muscling forward and screeched to a halt two inches later - proved most entertaining.

I could imagine that this would be the Sunday draw for the locals, who might flock to the Y-junction with their decks chairs and a few coolers of Piss-Lite to spend an enjoyable afternoon.

After they've got out of church, of course.

34: A Bum's Life

It’s not that I mind waking up in jail with a hangover - no honestly, things could be worse - but when the charges are read and I‘m found guilty, I really want to really be guilty. Not innocent, otherwise it’s all so sadly unfair.

Work finished at 5.00pm. Winter was drawing to a close and the first hint of spring had sparkled through the window all afternoon and my friends suggested a drink across the street at the Louisville Inn, a hotel bar where the waitresses wore silk, split-to-the-thigh trousers and tops revealing a level of femininity that made up for the beer.

My first mistake was deciding to drive home to change first. The second, closely related, was in not showering at the same time. In 1982 and, being British, the idea of optionally taking a shower on a day that was not Sunday, was unthinkable.

If I hadn’t gone home, I wouldn’t have left my wallet on the table. If I’d had a shower, perhaps the cops, when they later pulled me over for what began as speeding, might not have seen the greasy hair and stubbled chin and decided that I should be removed from the road. But I digress…

I drove my silver Firebird - oh yes, a car that stood out - at high speed back downtown and joined the crew in the bar. All was as expected - the sexy waitresses were there, the guys were there and the beer flowed. Discovering the non-wallet situation, the guys subbed me. When happy hour finished, the waitresses let it be known they were off to Dukes - a local hotspot - in case we might like to join them. We might.

I’d only been in town a few weeks and didn’t know my way around, so I followed Graham - who had a V8 Transam but didn’t appreciate newbies who couldn’t keep up. He drove fast and disappeared into the night after a few miles and then it started snowing. The blue flashing lights appeared in my mirror almost at the same time that I realized I was hopelessly lost, so I pulled over and waited, hoping I could get directions and go on my way.

The trooper approached and demanded my license and insurance. Both were in my wallet, which was at home. I tried to explain about the girls and how important it was that I should get to Dukes. He was a man, I thought - he’d understand.

He asked how much I’d had to drink but I continued about the girls, unabated. Is it known as withholding, I wonder, when you avoid a question like that? Perhaps it was my accent. Perhaps it was my stubble. Perhaps it was the greasy hair standing up at every angle known to man. Or perhaps it was the smell of the beer.

He asked me back to his police car. Whilst I sat in the back as he wrote out tickets and spoke in a hillbilly voice over the radio, a wrecker truck came and towed away the Firebird. Then we drove to the precinct house, which is the quaint American term for police station. Thinking that humor would diffuse the situation, when we walked inside, I pointed out that he hadn’t even handcuffed me, so he changed that immediately. They really aren’t that comfortable.

He stayed whilst a kindly old man, who looked as though he’d me more at home teaching maths to bored students, set up the breathalyzer. I’d expected a blow-in-the-bag affair, but this was like a desk outfitted with tubes, with dials and buttons and a chemical tube that had to be primed. When it was all ready, I blew through a tube that was almost three feet long and needles sprang to life. My reading, he said, was ‘borderline’, which surprised me as I was the only one of the three of us that knew I’d consumed five rounds of beers at two-for-one. You do the math.

Once I’d been charged and allowed my single phone call - I called work and left a message saying I’d be late in the morning - I was locked in a cell. The trooper disappeared and I was left to get what sleep I could, with only a mattress thinner than cardboard between my hips and a steel bunk. Several times in the night, I awoke with my contacts glued to my eyeballs and developed the solution of pulling the hairs up my nose to make my eyes water. Breakfast in the morning was pancakes and coffee - for free. Not enough syrup though - this was no Denny’s.

I was duly charged with driving without a license (in the wallet), without insurance (in the wallet), no license plates (new car and dealership temporary plate had expired), DUI (drunk driving), speeding and reckless driving. It was explained that I should get a lawyer to ‘negotiate’ some of these, since I professed to having a license and insurance, that the lack of license plates was not my fault and that speeding and reckless driving were mutually exclusive and that the DUI was ‘borderline. There was one other item though, that couldn’t be negotiated away…

The desk clerk asked me how much money I had on my person. None. I had to sign a form stating that I had none. It was explained that, in Bullit County, all persons must carry at least three dollars in cash. No exceptions. I began to explain again about the wallet. No exceptions, the clerk repeated, interrupting me. It was not a laughing matter.

He was right. Seven weeks later, in court, I was fined and given 6 points on my license for speeding and all other offences were dismissed. Except one. Even the judge protested to the police, but his hands were tied.

So that is why, despite being in possession of an expensive sports car when arrested and subsequently having earned millions of dollars over the years, I still have an outstanding conviction on the state of Kentucky.

For VAGRANCY.

33: A Munch and a Sip

It's late, I'm hungry and tired.

Thirty miles on the bike from Wilmington to Southport has made my wrist painful and the hangover from last night's Special IPA in the Wilmington brewery has done the same to my head. All I want is plenty of water, several glasses of wine and some nice food. Doesn't have to be fancy, just has to be OK. Could be Cabernet with red meat, could be Chardonnay with seafood - I don't much care, but the combination is everything my abused body requires to get back on the right track.

Slainte, the local Irish pub, is so close to the motel I could spit and hit its door but I don't want Irish food. They'd murder anything like a steak, the only fish would be battered and deep-fried and I'm not in the mood for chicken wings or any of the so-called traditional Irish favorites like bangers and mash, corned beef and cabbage or shepherd's pie; not tonight.

The Surfer's Paradise is half a mile away and I head there, past the low-grade fast food joints and walking on the sandy grass against traffic, all of which wants to kill the pedestrian. It's a game we play, me and the drivers; I act like a normal person and they become homicidal maniacs, intent of mowing down He-Who-Dares-Walk.

It's hot and I get sweaty very fast. All I can think of is red meat and red wine so I guess the reds have it. Burger perhaps? No. Steak. Ribeye? New York Strip? Could be either, but it must be rare and the wine makes it a meal.

When I reach Surfer's, I'm perturbed to see that closing time is 8.00pm - only half an hour away. I had thoughts of staying for several hours, writing notes and ruminating on life and the bike trip. Inside, it looks like a cross between a school dining room from England in 1968 and an old folks' eating house. No cosy booths, no old wood - just plastic-topped tables. Also, it is quiet, except for the sounds of people eating; no music.

I saw a documentary on the TV Food Channel two days ago where the hero of the program found a haute cuisines chef working in the restaurant of a gas station in Texas, so perhaps the room layout I see before me is indicative of the high-class feast to come.

I get a seat and notice the cutlery - every table setting has a single fork, encased in a paper packet. There are no knives. The diners are mostly old - are they not trusted with sharp objects? Does someone on the staff arrive when dinners is served, to cut our food into little squares? Do we get bibs? Is someone on hand to execute the Heimlich manoeuvre should a piece of meat go down the wrong way and bring and early termination to someone's dining experience?

My waitress arrives to tell me her name is Kelly. It should be Fat Kelly, I decide, in a moment of devilry. Fortunately I have enough sense to not pass on my humor. Kelly delivers a menu and asks me what I want to drink, so I tell her it depends on what I'll eat but, in the meantime, I could have a beer so what do they have on tap? That's when my world begins to shatter.

They don't have beer on tap. They don't have beer in a bottle, as I find out a millisecond later. Of course, I could gamble on the steak choice and go straight to the wine selection and order a Cabernet, but that's also not going to happen because Kelly, realizing that I am asking for something well beyond her ability to supply, blurts out, "We don't umm, umm, umm - serve," and I correctly take this to mean that there isn't a drop of booze in the house. Well, not for me - maybe the chef is a complete alky and glugs a bottle of gin whilst he's preparing the grub, but that's not for me to say.

Kelly leaves me with the menu and I decide that I should at least give the place a try because I am pretty hungry but, after scanning all three pages, I am at a loss to find something that is not fried. There are no salads, not that I want one, but their absence is relevant. Finally, I do manage to locate two non-friend items, both of which are steaks. hen I realise that every item - and I mean every item - is accompanied by a superlative adjective.

Both steaks are of generous proportions and would be grilled perfectly to my liking. The pork chops (fried of course) are described as delicious, the fish is gently battered, the scallops are fried to golden perfection. Not a single entry is without such a description and it reminds me of a used car lot where every car sports a placard bearing a similar boast.

Between the superlatives, the atmosphere and lack of alcoholic stimulation, I decide that a burger and a beer in the Irish pub might be the best choice. Maybe they have wine. They'll certainly have knives and, if they don't have Guinness, I'll carve off my own head with one. So, I exit quickly and trudge back up the road, past the gas station that has no shop, past the pizza place, which has now closed, across the parking lot and into Slainte.

They have Guinness, so I order one.

They have music.

I ask the bar guy about food.

"Not until September," he says, scratching the back of his head. "We have no kitchen. There's a place called Surfers about half a mile away..."

32: VIP

Am I a VIP?

Usually, the answer would be no, unless I hold a boarding card or an ID card or an invitation that specifically says that I am.

Several years ago, I was ejected from the British Airways VIP lounge at Heathrow. Even though I held a platinum British Airways VIP credit card, was a member of the British Airways Preferred Travellers Club and held a business class ticket (free upgrade), I was told by a uniformed official - who will one day die under painful and mysterious circumstances - that they did not allow just anyone in.

So, I guess I just don't have VIP stamped on my forehead, a lack that which causes no discomfort, but does explain why it did not occur to me yesterday morning to enter the VIP room on the 9th floor of the Wilmington Hilton for a continental breakfast. The sign clearly said VIP lounge. It could have had a sub clause explaining that anyone with a room on the 9th floor had a silver key - and that a VIP was anyone who held a key of that color.

Did it?

No.

Perhaps it's my status as a computer professional and the required level of precision in the way that I think - or maybe I'm just anal - but I often fail to understand what other people take for granted. I see signs all the time that are ambiguous and could be taken in several ways, or just plain wrong. Walmart has two signs on the same side of their doors. One says "No Entry," and the other, placed right underneath, proclaims, "Enter Only". Every door is the same. What is the intended effect and what moron placed mutually exclusive instructions next to each other?

Anyway, I digress...

This morning, armed with new and empowering knowledge regarding my status in the Hilton hotel, I visited the VIP lounge, expecting to be removed at any moment and wondering whether my Wado-Ru qualification (9th Ku, red belt) would in any way protect me from the wrinkled matron whose job it was to inspect keys.

I needn't have worried.

Either she was closer to death than anyone suspected or simply enjoyed an IQ in single digits. Any interaction caused her to smile in a vague, far off manner and tilt her head slightly to the side, as she murmured to an unseen location in mid-air somewhere beyond my right shoulder. I have no idea what she said, but the sounds could be useful to George Lucas if he were ever to make a sequel to Close Encounters, so I took it to mean "Help yourself to anything you see within these four walls."

It could also have been a warning. She might have been trying to say, "Don't even think you're getting over your hangover in here chum, because I'm about to turn on the giant flat screen TV at full volume and the bozo with the camouflage jacket is going to start an argument with it."

So I left.

I relinquished my VIP status, trudged up the road with my hangover in place and sat outside the Port-O-Java with a real coffee, watching a mad street vagrant doing a Bojangles impersonation in the middle of the road for change flipped into the street by other coffee drinkers.

What a job; limited life expectancy, but easy money.

I bet he doesn't worry about VIP status.

31: Computing For Dummies

So, I am alone and at the mercy of the accommodation jungle. If the map show that my destination has multiple big-name hotels, I wait until I arrive to find one. If it looks like a bed for the night is a rare as bacon in a synagogue, I have to call ahead or - if God has smiled upon me and I find myself blessed by the presence of usable computer facilities - use the Internet.

I find it curious how few facilities are provided, even by expensive hotels. I can understand why the Triangle Whorehouse Motel, where rooms are rented by the hour, doesn't stretch to anymore than clean sheets, multiple towels and air freshener, but I was surprised that the Wilmington Hilton saw fit to charge by the minute for a PC and for every sheet of paper printed.

It's surprising how quickly you can run up a bill as large as the national debt of a small country getting carried away on an email, especially when some girl with a silky sweet voice calls you from Verizon in the middle of it and spends ten bloody minutes of valuable computer time on a discussion regarding the relative benefits of an LG Envy Touch over an iPhone. That's assuming little Jimmie or little Suzy haven't found the business centre and glued themselves to Facebook, where they'll remain until their heads rot.

Even when one is there, it's often the cheapest piece of computing faeces to be found in Best Buy. Sometimes it freezes, sometimes it's as slow as a challenged snail and sometimes the keyboard requires the keys to be pressed as just the right angle and to exactly the right depth, otherwise no character appears on the screen and you spend as much time correcting your prose as writing it.

Then, of course, you can't rely on the software - does it have Word, or just a Word reader? Will you be able to build and edit something offline and then cut 'n' paste it to email or a flashdrive, or do those facilities not exist, so anything you create will be a complete waste of mental points and typing time because you can't get it off the damned machine?

In a Red Roof Inn on the outskirts of Wilmington, I was ecstatic to find what appeared to be a fully functional machine. Internet, email, available USB ports, local printer - all there. Did it have Word? Yes. Heaven was mine - temporarily. Each time I tried access to a 'suspicious' web site, the parental block overlaid the screen and I was advised to seek an administrator. Same thing with an email that might contain a bad word. Similarly with my blog, which contains no bad words but, I suppose, whoever set up that parental blog might worry that the youngsters of today's nanny state might have their emotional growth stunted by accidental exposure to profanity in the form of 'butt' or 'tail'.

Three weeks ago I found a motel in New Paltz that had a PC but it was turned off and locked away in the drawer of the desk where it was mounted. To use it, the desk clerk had to unlock the drawer to set it up then lock it away again - for security, he said. No way to plug a flash drive into that one. Oh well - that was also the motel whose breakfast comprised dry toast, dry cereal and see-thru coffee. Someone asked for butter and the desk clerk professed to have run Out. I asked for jam and he said it would be in tomorrow. Someone else asked for milk for the cereal and he shrugged, eyes cast heavenward, as if the answer would come from there. The whole place could have been the inspiration for Faulty Towers.

Someone call John Cleese.

30: A bridge Too Far

No smiling faces at breakfast.

No rushing to get bags to the luggage truck.

No cue sheets. No SAG van. No mechanical support. No route rap. No Denny's or hotel breakfast - just half an hour in a McDonald’s with the map and phone, trying to find a bed for the night.

It’s now two weeks since finishing the Cross Country ride and I have either 1,800 or 2,300 miles to go, depending on whether I go to Key West or directly to Tampa. The hotel routine hasn't changed much but the days are emptier.

It’s easy to get blasé about the camaraderie when other people are around all the time, but their lack of presence is obvious. Where's the Dalton Gang? Where’s Jim, zooming ahead at the speed of sound? Where's Willie, glued110% of the time to his cellphone before finally looking up, with a dazed expression? The road seems longer these days.

I hoe to see another cyclist in trouble so I can stop to help. Not because I am such a kind and helpful fellow, but because I have accumulated so many unspoken words since the last conversation that I will burst if I don’t spew them out.

I keep hotel desk people far too long when I check in and I always check out in person, just to gt that human touch. The clerk's desire to put the phone down is almost tangible when I call ahead to make a reservation. I don't use the internet for it anymore - it's weird to talk to a computer screen and people start to slide away when I do.

If someone happens to talk to me in a restaurant or bar, they soon regret it. Their eyes glaze as I babble like a Red Bull addict in response to the smallest of acknowledgements. Eventually, I will be interrogating fast-food people about their menu items, their jobs, their day, where they spent their last vacation – anything at all, just to interact with another human.

The subject is irrelevant as long as I hear the sound of myself talking. I don’t care whether anyone listens or whether there is any ebb and flow to the words, I simply have to speak in the presence of another individual. It is verbal masturbation. My feminine side has surfaced.

My mind wanders often on the road, with mile after mile of nothing to do except look ahead and pedal. Another gas station, another turning another tree… Even flat tires are welcome as they give me something to do. Well, that would be the case if it weren't for these damned Bontragers, which seem impervious to punctures.

In the morning, I think about sex. I start combining the best parts of previous girlfriends into one supergirl - mentally, of course, I’m not Frankenstein. I make the best of the best, but then I start to worry. The universe being what it is, with cause and effect and balance etc., if there was one all perfect supergirl, wouldn’t there also have to be one total anti-supergirl. Like the devil’s spawn in a miniskirt? Come to think of it, I believe I dated her.

I stop on bridges; they're my new friends. Some are trestles, some are steel girder affairs that every truck makes rattle and some are simple concrete roadways, but each one deserves a little attention.

So far, I haven’t talked to one (not much, anyway) or flagged down a passing motorist to ask for a photo with my new friend, but it’s just a matter of time. Harrisburg has lots; some for cars, some for trains and some for walking. Maybe I’ll go there for a few days. New friends are always welcome.

Late afternoon, I find myself staring at the computer on the handlebars, watching the hundredths turn into tenths and willing those onward. When a new mile comes around, it’s time for celebration. It’s not the same as another bridge, of course, but what could be?

It’s a long way to Key West. Sometimes, I wonder if I’ll make it all the way without going mad.

Maybe it’s too late.

29: Potty Training

As anyone non-British will discover when they visit the country, electrical sockets are generally installed in the place of greatest inconvenience. Nothing of higher power than a shaver socket is ever to be found in a bathroom lest we accidentally electrocute ourselves by using a hairdryer in the bath and the light switch hangs from a dirt-encrusted string that disappears into a suspicious stalactite on the ceiling.

I was reminded of the way in which we regularly make life difficult for ourselves – whilst pretending that such irks are perfectly normal – in the Boston Hotel Buckminster on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps other rooms are different but, in room 502, the bathroom light switch is cunningly hidden in the bedroom.

Did it matter? Did he lack of light play any part in the drama about to unfold? Let me know…

The luxury of time to perform a light switch search does not exist after sitting in a car for forty-five minutes, not long after a fried breakfast on the morning following the intense celebrations at the end of a three thousand mile bicycle tour, when your bowels are trying to explode. The urgency with which I rushed into the bathroom with a single purpose in mind did not allow the extravagance of appropriating reading materials and so the availability of light was unimportant.

Even the ownership of a new Nick Hornby novel would not be enough to bring a halt to the irrevocable flow of events and I was content to execute and complete the task in the minimal gloom that could filter through the closed wooden bedroom shutters and reach around the bathroom door. Einstein’s observations about light and straight lines do not apply in hotel room situations, particularly in times of personal stress.

Eventually satisfied, I stood and reached behind to press the flush. Something not quite right with the sound of gushing water made me turn to observe. Dismayed, I watched the silhouette of that-which-should-not-be-named rise towards the edge of the bowl and remain perilously close to its rim.

Holding my trousers up with one hand and finally locating the light switch several yards away with the other, my worst fears were confirmed; a blockage. Would it go away? Would there be a long pause, followed by a comforting swoosh as normality returned?

No.

I tried to will the situation better but my powers of telekinesis were insufficient. I glared at the disobedient toilet with the best look of superior British scorn I could muster. I kicked the side of the bowl repeatedly. Nothing changed.

Ben Stiller faced a similar situation in There’s something about Mary and attacked it with an ornamental toilet brush - but I had no toilet brush. Besides, I’m not Ben Stiller and stand no chance whatsoever of shagging Cameron Diaz. Not that the toilet brush incident played any great part in advancing his success on that score (ha ha excuse the pun), but I’m just saying… Oh, never mind.

I tried to ignore the vile, nasty potty in the center of the room. Time to lower the lid on, umm, well, just time to lower the lid. There are more things to do than worry about – that.

The toilet refused to be ignored. I unpacked and went back to the bathroom to check – maybe it’s all better?

No.

I plugged in the laptop, waited the usual Sony eternity for it to boot up and then checked the bathroom again.

Perhaps a small decrease in the level.

Should I try another flush? Too risky. An overflow situation did not bear consideration. Time to take a shower. Maybe another usage of the water system would cause something to occur? Clutching strings is the technical name for thoughts like that.

Problems in the shower with reversed hot and cold water, unmarked and entirely unsqueezble shampoo and conditioner bottles and the usual lack of places to put toiletries paled into insignificance.

The toilet was in control.

Anything could happen. I’ve seen it at the movies – one moment all is fine and the next, the toilet takes on a life of its own, becomes a high-pressure fountain and covers the bathroom ceiling in, well, let’s just say it misbehaves in a very bad way. I couldn’t forget Ben Stiller and the toilet brush.

Several times, I slyly pulled back the shower curtain to make sure nothing disastrous had occurred. The lid was still down. In my mind it had become a living, breathing evil plotting demon from the pit of hell, whose mission was the destruction of a single being; me. I even thrust a tentative step out of the shower, wet and naked, to gingerly lift the lid in the hope that fate had intervened.

It had not.

Nothing had changed by the time I was dressed. What now? I’ve had toilet problems before, but always had the tools available to deal with it. Now, I have not. Then it hit me…

This is a hotel.

Of course! I pay for this room. That’s what hotels are for – blocked toilets and other dramas are part of the room rate. It’s like insurance. Not everyone blocks the toilet, just like not everyone has a car accident or a house fire or a burglary – but we all pay for insurance.

Why am I worried? Why do I care? It’s not even my fault, not really. This isn’t New Jersey, where everyone is a percentage blameworthy for everything.

I don’t live here. It’s not my apartment and it’s not a friend’s home where I’m house-sitting, baby-sitting or dog-sitting. No one knows who I am other than the guest in 502 and I’ll be gone on Monday. It’s not my responsibility – what’s what hotel maintenance people are for. Do I care if they’re Mexicans and have horrible jobs. I began to smile; a plan had formed. The toilet was no longer in control.

I got dressed, picked up the bedside phone and called the front desk. If the phone cord had been longer, I could’ve glared into the bathroom at the same time as I reported it. Bastard toilet; that’ll show it.

On the way out, I even kicked it again; viciously, this time. No psychopathic improvement of Thomas Crapper is going to get the better of me.

28: Avalon

One might be forgiven for thinking that, after two specific hotel tales and several references to the mixed state of accommodations as we pedal our way across the country, all material had been exhausted.

Not so.

Let’s not dwell on the coffee maker with the wrong-sized pot, too small to trip the coffee-release valve so that it overflowed the basket until I poked it with a finger and became drenched in scalding brown lava.

Let’s not whine about the Wooster Best Western breakfast of rubber scrambled eggs, biscuits and bile-like gravy, thin coffee and sausages resembling dog turds or the low quality do-it-yourself freebies provided in a myriad of other hotels that caused many riders to embark on 100 mile days with empty stomachs.

Let’s not mention the numerous hotels where internet connection was inoperable either by wire or wi-fi or those where it connected, only to immediately disconnect at the press of any key.

Let’s not cry about those furniture-challenged rooms where the chair was several inches too small so reaching the laptop keyboard was like trying to eat at the adult’s meal table as a 4 year old.

Let’s ignore all those and concentrate on the Avalon hotel in Erie, Pennsylvania…

After pedaling 52 miles through cold rain, sitting soggily uncomfortable in the SAG van for the remaining 37 and finally reaching the hotel, I’m handed the key to room 724.

I navigate the mop-wielding Mexican in the lobby, slopping sudsy water from a bucket over the already-slick floor in a perpetual state of cleaning. He’s like those painters who work forever on the Golden Gate Bridge because it takes so long to get one coat done that it’s time to start again. You can make a career out of it. They never take the paint off though, so one day it’ll get so heavy it’ll fall down and stump scientists for decades.

Anyway, I digress…

The Avalon was built around the time the Dead Sea scrolls were written and everything above the lobby gives the impression of having not been not upgraded since the Carter administration. As I walk my bike along the seventh floor hallway, my nose is filled with the lingering smell of paint, so it seems that something is happening at last. I don’t particularly mind the pungent odor – it reminds me of my first non-shared apartment; my personal ‘new car smell’.

Being cold and wet, air conditioning is not required, but the room feels like a fridge and the wall unit has no switch to select between heating and cooling. Turning the thermostat from the 50 degrees where it’s currently set, shuts off the A/C fan but does not produce any warmth. Maybe it needs time but, after unpacking and doing laundry, the heat still has not come on, so I call the front desk.

“Turn it to 70,” she says. It’s on the maximum of 85, but I do as I am told in case there’s something magical about the 70-mark. Nothing changes. “Try turning it the other way,” she says, but that switches the air conditioning back on. “Umm, put it back to 70,” she instructs, less confidently. “Wait five minutes and call back if it doesn’t work and I’ll send maintenance.”

This feels like staying home to tough out an illness and then, at death’s door, struggling to the doctor only to be told, “Take two aspirin and come back next week.” I decide to shower first. Options are slim when you’re naked

There’s no shampoo.

The bathroom is equipped with a coffee maker, ice bucket, hair drier, body lotion, soap, two bottles of conditioner and enough towels of varying shapes and sizes to supply a whole village in England, but no shampoo.

I was in my teens before learning that washing my hair with hand soap wasn’t the way to go but my hair is the way you would expect after riding more than fifty miles in the rain, so it seems that I must suffer once more. I’m starting to get what Harry would call ‘arse-ache’ with this hotel and my cold, wet state does nothing to salve it.

The shower has a mind of its own and seems to have lost it. The single water control switches the temperature from scalding to freezing in a one-inch band of movement. It does not vary gradually, but simply changes from one extreme to the other, requiring more luck than skill to find the single sweet spot where the water will neither freeze my private parts nor take my skin off.

The shower height might be suitable for midgets, dwarves and full-sized short people, but I am none of those and have to force the showerhead almost horizontal. Consequently, the water shoots the length of the bath like a jet stream, rebounds from the wall and floods the floor until I aim it at a lower angle – but then I have to stoop to get wet above the waist.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and refreshed but with backache and hair standing up like sexually excited string, I emerge into the hypothermic living room. The heating still doesn’t work. The same girl answers the phone and promises to send maintenance, so I take the opportunity to also ask for shampoo, then get dressed quickly and go out.

Starbucks is a ten minute walk (thank you, God) so I consume as much brown hallucinogenic as possible without passing out and return to the hotel several hours later. The heating still does not work but the presence of a blue bottle of shampoo in the bathroom shows evidence of a visit.

Perhaps repairs are ongoing? The thermostat seems to be in the same position as earlier and there’s no note, so I call the front desk again. A different woman from earlier tells me that repairs are not ongoing and promises to advise maintenance, who will attend to it whilst I am out for dinner. Two hours, one burger and three beers later, I return to find the room still cold.

Perhaps personal attention may make a difference, so I take the elevator back to the lobby and stand at the desk in front of yet another clerk – a man this time – whilst he answers call after call from the switchboard without ever once looking up. It seems that all calls take precedence over physical presence so, with a flash of what can only be described as personal brilliance, I return to the room and use the phone to call him.

I explain the situation, being careful to not let the three beers sway my negotiation. He promises to send maintenance. “Haven’t they already been twice,” I ask, but he does not know. The front desk does not keep records of the comings and goings of the maintenance man, he says.

I cannot stay in the room to wait and I cannot go to bed; so I go out again. Many hours later, after returning from various bars in the area, the heating still does not work.

The cold seems to have dissipated, although that might be imagination brought on by the large amount of beer that I have consumed as a result of being in close proximity to Harry; a quantity that also makes it inadvisable to visit the front desk again. Fortunately, I have enough sense to not do so.

In any case, there is nothing that can be done. I have learned, from talking to other riders in the pub, something that the desk clerks could easily have told me…

The heating is inoperative for the entire hotel.

No rooms have it.

It is off for the summer.

27: Sunday

This has nothing whatever to do with riding a bike across America but, as we pedaled through a closed near-ghost town the other day, someone remarked that it felt like Sunday and my mind traveled back in time a generation to another era…..

It’s Sunday morning.

It’s 1978.

It’s England – Shrub End, Colchester, to be exact.

I wake up, momentarily pleased that it’s a weekend, but then realize that it’s Sunday. Should I be happy or depressed? The weather will determine which, but the single hole in the curtains hasn’t yet rotted enough to see what’s going on outside.

True, the weekend is only half used but the Sunday Trading laws ensure that everything is closed and that no one goes anywhere or does anything not directly connected with church or family.

For someone in my position – not religious and having no girlfriend, no car, no friends without family obligations and living in the world’s smallest bed-sit in a house run by an eighty year old gay man who calls himself Maur-eece – Sunday holds little promise.

I get up, dress quickly and pull back the curtains in anticipation and stare out at a dismal gray sky with a warming sense of glee. There’s not much evidence of actual rain, apart from the odd dribble collecting dirt as it runs down the cracked window, but the general degree of dullness shows that the day has potential.

This is the kind of rain that old housewives like my mother, who do their hair up in headscarves, refer to as fine rain. It gets you cold to the bone and wet through and makes the world so dismal that there’s no point spending time outside. It’s the kind of inclemency that makes Sunday acceptable; a perfect day for the pub.

I’m dismayed to see that the old red Westclox alarm clock on top of the TV says it’s only eight o’clock. Maybe I forgot to wind it up and it’s stopped? Did we switch to summertime in the night? Neither of those is true and I must face the fact that I have four hours to wait, so I try to summon a sense of stoicism, which is the closest to the British stiff upper lip that I can manage at the age of 21.

What now? The afternoon’s entertainment will be the cinema, of course, that much is certain. Besides the pubs, with their minimalist trading hours, the cinema is the only thing allowed to open on Sunday, but not until four o’clock.

Of the three in Colchester, the Cameo closed due to lack of interest but no one noticed until it became a bicycle shop. The ABC went bankrupt and soldiered on for a while by presenting unfunny comedians to children on Saturday mornings until the kids realized that there were no films anymore and stopped going. That leaves the Odeon, which shows two features concurrently but alters the start times on a Sunday.

The only ways of finding out the Sunday program is to look in a newspaper, to phone them, or to physically go there. It would help if they could put up a notice on Saturday, but the sour old woman who runs the ticket booth evidently feels that this would be an unnecessary drain on her energies.

The newspaper option requires having the forethought to buy one on a Saturday – because not even the newsagent is open on Sunday – and calling is no use as the ticket seller rarely answers the phone until after the film has started. In any event, that would require the co-operation of Maur-eece.

To retain phone control, he placed a small locking device on the one-hole of the dial and keeps the key on a string around his neck. The only numbers that can be dialed must be composed entirely of ‘1’s and I suspect that there are not so many of them. It is possible to pick the lock with an opened paperclip or to generate a number by clicking the receiver rest or even rattle it until the operator answers, but none of these is practical whilst Maur-eece is in the house.

The best option is to go there. On a weekday, there are so many buses into town that they form an almost unbroken stream like giant maroon and cream ducks but not today. On Sunday, there’s one per hour, if the driver has turned up for work. At least fifty percent of the time he has not and I have to walk three miles along streets devoid of people except skinheads looking for a fight, past closed shops, closed pubs, closed garages and closed restaurants. Since the single Sunday bus, driven by the single Sunday driver performs a special Sunday loop, its absence in one direction means that I will be walking both ways.

Still wondering how to use the morning, I notice the bulging plastic bag of dirty clothes in the corner and realize that I could go to the launderette, which is the only place that will be open besides the pub and the cinema. I’m so happy with this discovery that it even occurs to me to take a bath.

The water is cold.

Only Maur-eece can turn on the boiler. He has never been persuaded to set the time clock to do it automatically and the key to the boiler cupboard is, for reasons known only to himself, kept in the same place as the telephone key.

Involving Maur-eece in anything at all requires a discussion at the kitchen table concerning justification for the request, latest news about his affected friends Rich-ard and Kenn-eth, their eye-diseased dog, his brain-tumored Burmese cat (who frequently jumps into boiling pots on the stove whilst aiming for his adjoining basket) and unbelievable anecdotes from his army days.

On the good side, such a scene would use up a part of Sunday otherwise having no value but it would take at least half an hour to heat the water. Staying in close proximity for that long whilst a bath-robed Maur-eece complains about my lack of washing-up skills and smokes those stinky Gitanes that he claims he got a taste for in the French Foreign Legion (not that anyone believes he ever went to Corsica) is too painful.

I’m not supposed to know he left the army thirty years earlier under something of a cloud and I’m certainly not supposed to question his dubious presence in the Legion. Our relationship has been somewhat strained after I laughed when he claimed to have invented vinegar and now I’m expected to listen and gaze in awe at whatever he says.

Such a discussion is impossible to avoid when I want something and Maur-eece does not tolerate escape attempts whilst he is recounting the past, fabricated or not. Suffering of that degree represents too much misery for a Sunday and besides, I’d never be able to justify two baths in the same week.

Aside from remnants of six-month old copies of Reader’s Digest that even the dentist would throw out, British launderettes never have anything remotely helpful or usable in them and a machine to dispense soap powder or change for the washers falls firmly into that category. Fortunately, I manage to collect enough coins from odd reserves I have scattered around my room and under the carpet.

I open the windows wide to let in the wet freshness, which is about as close as I’m going to come to personal hygiene today and stuff into the bag everything that can be washed. Suitably prepared, I creep downstairs, steal some detergent from the smelly cupboard in the kitchen and walk out into the inviting chill of the outside world.

Sitting in the launderette as my clothes turn in sudsy circles, I wonder where my life is going and whether today’s mission is one of relevance. There’s a disconcerting feeling that time is slipping by, but attaining the confidence to radically change it is a gift that I have yet to receive.

26: Half Way

It’s raining.

I’m alone in a Dairy Queen.

I think it’s Tuesday.

By tomorrow night in Topeka, we’ll have passed the halfway point, both in miles and time. That’s around 1,700 miles - is the trip half done or half left? Ask Freud, I don’t know.

Yesterday was the end of a nine-day continuous stretch from Sante Fe to Abilene. Everyone is much stronger and daily mileages have become meaningless. Seventy miles, a distance that might strike terror into the hearts of mortals, now feels like a rest day. Tomorrow’s ride is 108 miles with 6,200 feet of elevation gain and the only point of consternation is the weather.

George and I will be allowed to leave early because we are the slowest – ahem, the most concerned with looking around at the beautiful countryside. It’s like being the foxes for the baying hounds, who’ll be given our scent and allowed out of the hotel when we have a forty-five minutes’ head start.

Sitting here, watching the rain outside, it’s hard to accept that, only two weeks ago, we were burning up in the heat of the Mojave Desert. Hydration is no longer a key issue and ‘camelback’ is no longer a swear word on people’s lips.

Gone are the scrub bushes and wastelands of the desert, gone are the seemingly endless mountain passes and switchback ascents and in their place are farmlands with undulating terrain, rolling hills and fields of wheat rippling in the wind.

Not gone, are the instances of minimal IQ in this heartland of the country. I’ve eaten at restaurants that list chocolate pudding as a vegetable. OK, I admit it – only one did that – but we meet people who couldn’t point to a world map and know any of the countries except Canada or Mexico. Getting both of them right might be a stretch. Even the pod people in Grants could do better.

All that differs on tour from one day to the next is the destination, of which we generally see very little. It’s easy to forget where we are, where we were and where we’re going. Remembering what room you’re in? That’s just not going to happen.

Local sights are noted on the cue sheets but it’s easy to roll straight past – or decide not to bother in favor of a hot shower and dinner. Abilene has the Eisenhower museum, Liberal had Dorothy’s house from the Wizard of Oz and Dodge City had the OK coral. Missed ‘em all.

Our hotels are almost always on the edge of town and surrounded by little more than a gas station with a convenience store. That’s wonderful if you need 19 kinds of beef jerky, 5 types of chewing tobacco or a 64oz Slurpee with free (miss-spelt) donut but not so useful if you want a postcard or a magazine about something other than NASCAR or guns. Luxury is the occasional Walmart.

Breakfasts are either so-called continental breakfasts in the hotel, which is really no more than an excuse for wasting an hour over sticky plastic-wrapped muffins, fake eggs and the occasional do-it-yourself waffle, or the full-on diner, where an embarrassing amount of food is served, so large that it will often not fit onto a single table. As Ira said, in appalled recognition, “Now I know why Americans are so fat.”

There’s more of a willingness amongst the riders to socialize after dinner now. Sometimes it’s no more than a swift drink in a sterile environment but other times we experience the treat of seeing locals at play in their natural habitat.

In Dalhart, we discovered the Texas Tavern; a wood fronted local saloon with a cute blonde bartender missing a tooth. Blue and red neon beer signs glared through swirling cigarette smoke and Stevie Ray Vaughan sang from a CD jukebox.

Two people played a noisy game of pool - Sam, clad in denim overalls and grinning like a country bumpkin and Brenda, generously sized brunette with a bulging midriff, squeezed into a poorly-chosen white tee-shirt. Brenda had a way with words…

“When I start drinking,” she said, up-ending the bottle of Jack Daniels by its neck and taking a long swig, “Two things could happen; I go to jail, or I get laid.”

Ignored by all, she swayed her abundant self to the pool table to take a shot.

“I ain’t had it for more’n two months and I’m gonna get me some tonight,” she continued, unabashed by disinterest. “I think I done dried up.”

We had discovered the cultural center…

25: Walmart

Walmart – savior of the masses.

There, I said it. I don’t care what you think, I like Walmart and K-Mart and any other mart that rescues me from wasting my weekend. Do you think it’s fun, trudging around ten different shops to get a few basic things on a Saturday, then panicking at the end of the afternoon because the approaching 5.00pm curfew spells disaster if something gets missed?

I have other things to do with my life besides shopping and anything that will get it done fast and with the minimum of fuss, gets my vote. If I lived in an old people’s home and had nothing else to do all day except moan about the state of the country, then maybe traipsing up and down the street until the shops closed might be a way to a social life of sorts, but that’s not the case.

I work and I’m single. I haven’t got a stay-at-home wife or girlfriend or mistress to shop for me. How sexist would that be anyway? Are you married? Does your wife do the shopping? If the answer to the second one is yes, then hold your opinion until I’ve finished.

It’s not that long ago that all the shops in England used to close at five o’clock every day and stay shut all Sunday – how bloody useful was that? Super late night closing would be to stay open an extra couple of hours on a Friday. It took large stores like Tesco and B&Q to break the status quo and show people there’s another way; a way that suits the modern world better.

The world’s expanded and moved on and we can’t turn the clock back even if we wanted to. Who in their right mind would? A few old fogies might, of course, but they’re the type of folks who hum along to scratchy Glen Miller 78’s and who’d like to see explosive charges in the Channel Tunnel so it could be blown to bits when the Germans invade. Because they will, those old farts will have you believe, as they stare mistily at the sky and murmur a tuneless rendition of Moonlight Serenade.

Yeah, I sympathize with the high street butcher and the baker and the candlestick maker who all suffer and who’ll maybe even go out of business and I understand claims that the big stores don’t give the same quality of service, but WAKE UP people. We live in a country with a BIG population and they don’t have the time to wander up and down quaint old village streets every day.

Besides, where would those millions of people that need to buy stuff park the 10 mpg Hummer (doesn’t everyone need a weapon-less tank for shopping) or the SUV or the mega-fucking-minivan, that seems to be the vehicle of choice for Suzie Homemaker these days?

It’s personal for me. I couldn’t go into a butcher and ask for a pound of beef because I don’t have a fig’s clue about how big it is. Is it enough? Maybe it’s too big. I know when I see it in its plastic pack on the supermarket shelf where I don’t have to suffer stares of scorn from know-it-all housewives.

Same with potatoes – I want three. Not three pounds or three kilos - three potatoes and I want to choose them myself and put them in a bag without being judged, but the high street grocer is not the place for that. As I said, I’m single. A spud for today, one for tomorrow and another for spare is as much future planning as I need.

Obviously I could learn, but where’s the convenience in having to go from the butcher to the grocer then the baker for bread, the wine shop for a bottle and the newsagent for a newspaper? Could be fun if you’re on holiday somewhere foreign and you’re a sorry enough case to need a story to tell the neighbors when you get back (ooh, Betty, I asked for two pounds and they gave me two kilos and then they wanted Euros), but it’s hardly the way to spend every day of normal life.

I want to browse racks of clothes or shoes and try on what takes my fancy, without having to wait to ask an assistant to go and get a size eight – and now a size eight and a half because I got it wrong or because this particular shoe manufacture’s a bit screwed. Same with trousers or undies or shirts or anything else you can think of.

It’s a matter of control.

Who cares if Walmart employees can’t be found, or know nothing? Wandering the aisles, exploring and choosing, allows complete control. Unlike waiting and waiting and waiting in a small shop and then relying on a teenage girl who knows as much about shoes as I do about meat and who’d rather be somewhere else.

You disagree? Vehemently? You think I’m a rebel for supporting Walmart and ought to be shown a thing or two? Well consider it awhile and if you still want to duff me up, then come ‘round to my house. At least you’ll find me in, ‘coz I won’t be spending all my time shopping.

24: Non-Quality Inn

We are now almost half way across the United States. Each day blends into the previous and most are little more than a pedal slog to reach the next town.

Yes, there are odd restaurants that stand out, nights to be remembered and tourist sights to gawp at, but go buy a Bill Bryson book if you want a travelogue – I just squirt out lines of prose when I feel inspired.

I have now stayed in around 25 hotels during the last month. That’s quite enough to feel a sense of irritating repetition over unpacking, packing, unwrapping soaps, the general laundry routine and setting up the laptop. I dream of the day when I can spend more than 2 consecutive nights in the same place. Forget the Nirvana of reaching a hotel without using a van – to not go through that routine and to come in to an already-prepared computer station now seems like heaven.

Twenty-five hotels in that short period is not just a lot, it’s enough to rant about spectacularly bad places and notice trends in the others.

You’d think that cleaners would notice blocked sinks, missing plugs, telephones without cables to connect them to the wall, non-working lights or toilets that don’t flush and report them to maintenance, but evidently not. Perhaps they’re too busy making beds for midgets – with the covers turned over at what would be waist height for a normal human.

My room at the Indio Super 8 suffered all of the above. Outside, the hotel appeared to be in the process of either construction or destruction and all sunshades in the courtyard except one were broken and rotted. We – the guests – had to construct a solar barrier by mounting the dead shades on top of the single healthy one to behind which to shelter and enjoy the free burgers thoughtfully provided by the management, presumably as an unspoken apology for the sad state of their premises.

I’m always curious about the plethora of minor curiosities and things that don’t work when I check into a new hotel. Will the wi-fi internet appear on demand? If it needs a pass code, why didn’t the front desk supply it automatically, without me having to find that it doesn’t work on demand and then call them?

Why is there no guard on the A/C to prevent the air shooting up inside billowing curtains? Why is there a plaque in the bathroom asking me to conserve water by re-using towels, but no offer of a discount for doing so - thereby saving the hotel money and work?

Why does the in-room coffee taste like old carpet, no matter how strong I make it? Why, in a room set up for two people, is there usually only one regular coffee sachet and one decaf? Does a couple have to share – or fight over who gets the buzz?

I can understand the wish to reduce costs, but if the management is prepared to charge a standard price, then they should also provide the quality given elsewhere – and not cut corners to make a buck.

It’s generally the foreign run hotels that are the worst – this is an observation, not an unfair bias. They’re the ones whose rooms shout at you, “My new owner has spent absolutely nothing on me and has every intention of maintaining that level of expenditure.”

They usually sport tatty curtains, broken fixtures, a TV the size of a small car that screams ‘1975”, a shower curtain without enough hooks, tiny soaps that shatter when you pry off the wrapper, an empty tissue dispenser so you have to use toilet paper to blow your nose and shampoo that makes your hair smell like the floor.

I once stayed in a hotel in Palm Springs – long gone – where the curtains hung irregularly by odd pieces of wire and the beige carpet had so many cigarette burns it looked like a Dalmatian. I had to ask for toilet paper, since none was provided when I arrived, only to be greeted with a 15 second stare of wonder at the front desk, before a half-used roll was handed over. Mind you, having spent time in India, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

At least I could blow my nose.

23: Door Dilemma

It’s only been 2 weeks but every hotel blurs into one.

The town is of no importance. The day is irrelevant. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a Super 8, a Comfort Inn or a Holiday Inn - they’re all clones.

The brain works on blood. After riding all day, it’s all in my legs. Just as well there’s no sex life on tour.

Remembering a new room number is about as easy as walking a straight line and reciting the alphabet backwards after a couple of six-packs. The clerk could tell me a dozen times and I will forget it a dozen times before I walk away from the desk.

With eyesight like mine, I can’t see what’s been written on the key envelope – so now I’ve taken to writing it myself in BIG numbers. Glasses would help, but not a lot. Even when I can read it, I still forget in the second it takes to look up from the envelope.

I have pushed my bike to each end of a corridor and back before repetitively sliding the cardkey in the door with the number from last night’s room – because, after using it several times last night, it’s familiar - then returned to the desk to report today’s key faulty, got a new one and repeated the sad process.

Sometimes the door does open – not because of my key, but because the stranger in the room comes to see what’s going on.

In the movies, that stranger would be a seductress like a young Lauren Bacall with a smoldering cigarette in a holder between red lips, dressed in a translucent nightdress with a hint of dark lingerie. She’d be holding a glass of chilled champagne and I, naturally, would be a smartly dressed black and white Humphrey Bogart; but taller.

In real life, I am encased in black shorts and yellow shirt, my hair is molded into helmet vent lines and I am wearing sweaty gloves. I smell the way I look, I probably still have sunglasses on and am holding a bike. The door is opened by a fat businessman or a scrawny redneck, either of whom who stare as if I am from Mars. If he’s unlucky enough, we’ll meet again later.

Forgetting the room number is as easy as forgetting what town you’re in. That happens too. As I said - it’s a blood thing.

There is a large degree of torment in every day and perhaps blotting out the small things is the brain’s way of softening the pain.

Or maybe it’s Alzheimer’s.

22: Flat Tires

Tracy proclaimed that four minutes is all it takes to deal with a flat tire.

That minimalist period probably assumes all tools are ready to hand, that the unfortunate flatee replaces the tube instead of patching it and uses a CO2 injector for inflation.

I can do it in eight to ten, hiding from assistance – even well-meaning help will take longer. That includes locating the puncture, gluing, patching, pressing, cleaning the tire and manually inflating with a frame pump. It’s not hard to judge the pressure with a thumb and be less than 15 PSI out.

CO2 injectors? Don’t make me sneer. If this were Star Trek and the CO2 injector was the transporter, I would be Doctor McCoy.

Injectors are despicable inventions and reduce the ability of the user, much like continually driving an automatic car destroys your ability to drive. True, you can inflate the tire in a nanosecond and be on your way. You can also, if the tube is pinched, burst it and be back to square one.

Every flat requires a full cartridge – how many can you carry? What about when you run out? Can you actually get more? Is there a shop within walking distance? In the desert? They’re not free, so every flat costs money. If you’re a tube replacer rather than a patcher, that can make your desert crossing expensive.

I always patch a tube unless it’s too damaged. If it’s raining then I’ll replace it and mend it later in the dry. The additional time it takes to find a puncture and mend it, even on the side of the road, is negligible.

I don’t like to generalize, but it’s a fact that Americans will simply discard a perfectly good inner tube that has been punctured and insert a new one. It’s just another facet of the built-in-obsolescence economy that appeared after the 1970’s.

I find myself in company with a number of riders incapable of dealing with a flat, regardless of the operation’s extent. When one occurs, often several people cluster around the unfortunate flatee like a pit crew to all assist in some way. Help is nice, but survival skills must be individual.

How someone can proclaim themselves worthy to ride more than three thousand miles across a continent but be unable to perform the most basic of bicycle repairs? Of all the things that can occur on a bike ride, especially a long one, punctures are the most likely – and the most frequent.

It is often the women who deserve this criticism the most as they’ve allowed themselves to become accustomed to a male doing it for them. What happens when they’re alone? What happened to female liberation? Does that disappear when dirty work is involved? A cross country ride is not a gentle Sunday afternoon’s ride along the cycle path.

So – now you have my opinion on flats – and the people who can’t fix them…

21: Taking It Easy

Today, we crossed the Rio Grande.

Not with John Wayne and the Tenth Cavalry, not as cause-bound freedom fighters and without wagons, guns or canon. We had bicycles in place of horses and we crossed the big river to reach the town of Albuquerque.

It is now 4 riding days and 329 miles since the euphoria of reaching my personal Nirvana at Flagstaff. I have thighs Superman would envy and an ego to match. The belt that wouldn’t fit three weeks ago is now on its third hole and my trousers fall down without it.

After a self-indulgent rest day in Flagstaff (beer, movie and oh, oh, oh, Starbucks, how I missed thee) we continued with overnight stops at Holbrook, Gallup and Grants – which deserves a tribulation all of its own.

Riding again after the day off felt like going back to school, until I realized that this is meant to be fun and changed my mindset accordingly. Riding is fun. Fixing flats is fun. Constantly adjusting bike computers to match cue sheets is fun. Hills are fun. Melted sunscreen running into your eye is fun. Quads screaming in exhausted agony is fun. It’s all good.

Popular music here has always been influenced by Americana; New Jersey Turnpike in the wee wee hours (Chuck Berry’s ‘Mabelline’), an uncountable number of songs about cities, Get Your Kicks on Route 66 (everyone). It’s curious to find one example of exactly the opposite in Winslow, Arizona, where a giant wall mural on a corner of Route 66 depicts a girl (my Lord) in a flat bed Ford (slowing down to take a look at me). Thank you, Eagles.

What’s left of Route 66 falls into two categories – stretches designated as historic, upon which restoration money has been spent to create a linear tourist attraction and other lengths that remain there simply because the people who live on it won’t move. The Jackrabbit Trading Post, once famous all the way from Canada to California, now exists on its own remnant of Route 66, which ends in dirt less than a mile past it in one direction and several hundred yards in the other.

The rest, for the most part, has disintegrated into a dirt track. Anyone traveling the route it once served will now join speeding trucks and cars on the anonymous I40, never knowing they are so close to a piece of history that has been allowed to decay and vanish.

I learned on Tuesday, courtesy of a fellow rider, that the Continental Divide – that we pedaled across – is not the part of America that would form prime beach front property should Lex Luthor get his wish and cause an earthquake. It has something to do with watersheds but, before your eyes glaze over and you start to recall the word trainspotter, I do not know and do not care what that is.

Perhaps if I stand on one side and take a piss I would get wet legs but, if I did the same on the other side, a jet of wee would shoot a hundred yards. That would be the non-scientific explanation. Women shouldn’t try this experiment.

Now we’re in Albuquerque and what’s here? Nothing, as far as I can tell. It’s the wrong spot on the Rio Grande to watch Mexicans floating downstream to get into the US illegally and too far from the old town area to visit without a lot of hassle. The only entertainment close to this outpost of humanity where we stay seems to be the bar of the Hilton hotel next door.

After a week of fighting crosswinds, headwinds, exhaustion and swearing at some of my compatriot riders, who appear to believe that riding on the left and entirely blocking the shoulder when they stop is the right way to behave, I have only a sad hotel bar for salvation. It probably even has a piano player.

What is my life coming to?

20: Grants

Don’t come to Grants unless your evening plans comprise wandering Walmart, or ritual suicide.

For all I know, there could be a vibrant eclectic scene downtown but, on the outskirts, this town lacks a certain joie de vivre. I can’t believe the entire town can be so mind numbingly boring and dysfunctional, so maybe the townsfolk are trying to dissuade outside visitors, to keep a nefarious secret – trafficking human parts, for instance.

It starts at the hotel...

The clock/radio plays only commercials with whining children or females singing about Jesus. Other radio transmissions – anything with any musical or interest content – are non-existent.

Internet access, misleadingly represented by glossy pictures of hard-wired ethernet connections requiring a pass code at check-in, is actually wi-fi with no pass code requirement but, as it turns out, no-fi. The signal disappears after 3 minutes online, never to return.

The front desk clerk, who smiles inanely and points a thumb towards the ceiling, tells me to call the internet help desk who would ‘sort me out.’ I bet they would. Any communication with help desks will take years off your life – that’s what they’re for. It’s a sneaky method of population control.

There is no food. Despite a continuous illuminated display outside advertising dinner specials, the kitchen is closed due to mechanical difficulties. Meaning what, exactly? Has somebody’s cat fallen into the food processor? Is the cleaning lady missing a finger? Have recent guests turned green and died?

So – on to the bar for popcorn and beer where, despite being empty, it takes a while to get served. The pleasant atmosphere of background John Lennon music soon disappears, to be replaced by the raucous laughter track of a comedy show from a 14 inch television above the bar, turned up to full volume.

Neither the program, nor the frequent commercial breaks is hardly welcoming entertainment – and this seems to be overwhelmingly sponsored by a new birth control pill called Yaz. The chubby barmaid, whose eyes remain affixed to the picture, will not do anything about it. “Everyone wants the game on,” she says, vaguely, waving around at the entirely vacant room.

There is no game. There is no everyone, so I spend the next ten minutes hurriedly finishing my beer whilst hearing, multiple times, that Yaz does not prevent HIV, STD or other three-letter acronyms connected with unprotected sex.

The desk clerk says there’s one other bar in town but I find it fenced off in a construction site and looking like it’s been that way for a very long time. Perhaps it served food and had good music so the locals closed it to avoid attracting attention.

The Asian super buffet across from the hotel turns out to be a steam table holding a collection congealed masses of what might once have passed for food, but their time of holding that status has long passed. Now, they look more like something that would be offered on the salad bar in an English Pizza Hut.

Table for one, I am asked, by a smiling oriental lady who either thinks I am starving, or mad. She’s right about one of those. She would have a point with the other if I were actually to sit down.

A shudder runs down my spine as I realize the truth; without resorting to Taco Bel or Subway, there remains only Denny’s. As a restaurant, Denny’s falls a couple of notches short but, as a last resort in the town that feels like it died ten years ago, it suddenly gains status. I could go there, have a mediocre steak and a glass of bad wine and pretend to be in the land of living for the evening.

No.

It takes several attempts to find Denny’s, hidden between Super 8, the car wash and Walmart. Fifty-year old music reaches me before I even get to the door and continues, unabated, as I ask for a table, sit, order and eventually eat. Not that I mind– I quite like that era of oldies – but it says something about the population.

Denny’s is evidently the place of choice for anyone whose hair has turned gray, white or disappeared altogether and lives in a 1950’s time warp. No one seems to be eating much or talking – just sitting, staring.

Never mind, I’m not here to make friends, I just want a steak and a couple of drinks but once more I am thwarted.

“We don’t serve alcohol,” the teenage waitress says slowly, wide-eyed at the suggestion. “We just don’t see the need.”

Where else can I go? In the land of the blind, the one-armed man is king. Or something like that. It applies to restaurants too.

It’s whilst I’m eating, that another reason for the town’s state dawns on me; Los Alamos is very close. Could fifty years of radiation exposure from those early A-bomb tests have caused generations to lose increasing degrees of IQ, so that even the brightest would be considered a moron by standards in the outside world? Does the waitress have a seven-toed cousin at home? Do they burn the two-headed ones?

I chew in uneasy silence for a while as Pat Boone, Elvis and then Little Richard serenade the restaurant. Is fifty years enough? Will I be safe for one night?

Worry begins with a niggling feeling in your stomach and grows, like wanting to go to the toilet. Is there something else? The true reason begins to form in my mind, like a jigsaw taking shape. Forget trafficking body parts. Forget radiation and mutants.

Area 51 isn’t far; not next door, but close enough. I know how these things work – I saw that movie. First, there are lights in the sky, dogs disappear and cows get turned inside out. Then pods appear in basements. One by one the townsfolk vanish for a day or two and, when they come back, they’re different; quiet, subdued and they walk around staring.

Women forget how to cook and men stop drinking. They have no need for food or alcohol. They hang together, shunning others until, one by one, everyone becomes the same.

It all fits.

First, it was Roswell. Now they’re on the move.

We’re all doomed.