The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

"By a set of curious chances..." Part One.

November 20th, 2009

London bound ?

On Sunday I cryptically announced to my people that Mass would be celebrated on Monday and then not until next Sunday - at least publicly. On Monday in the early evening I headed to Tampa airport to fly first to Dulles Airport in Washington DC and thence to London, Heathrow. All went like clockwork (which is highly unusual for American flights these days - especially since I was looking at about only 40 minutes between a connecting flight to London, so my schedule was tight indeed.)

We landed in London way ahead of schedule, we had a big tail wind which caused major turbulence throughout the flight (and quite a bit of praying on my part, curiously for my fellow passengers should anything untoward happen to us and not necessarily for myself).

Since I traveled very light - just a carry-on bag I passed through passport control and customs very quickly. I was initially a little surprised by being greeted by a passport control officer of ethnic Asian origin - from the Indian sub-continent or thereabouts and then noticed all the personnel were all from the same ethnic background - I write "surprised" not by a racially motivated prejudice, but only because I didn't see a recognizable Caucasian anywhere and that surprised me - after all England is my native country and was predominantly Caucasian as I was growing up - thus not to see this reflected in the personnel was what surprised me.

Then the beginning of the "curious chances": I had "banked" on the fact that I would withdraw funds from a teller machine in English currency after passing through customs. This way I would avoid the hideous fees and exchange rates of the currency dealers in the terminals. Well I "banked" wrong. Both the credit card and debit card were "declined". For the first time in my life I was truly penniless. I had not one single piece of English currency. Now after a 6 hour flight (the shortest Transatlantic flight I ever had) and not a wink of sleep, this really "threw me for a loop" as they say in Americanese. Well despite the lack of funds I decided to press on with my preconceived plan of action and figure out the solvency issue (or lack thereof) later on.

Next I went to the car rental counter and saw a sign that told me to board a bus outside the terminal that would take me to the rental agency. Now in the terminal I went to the "Hertz" desk. Outside, I saw a bus, it said "Enterprise" on the side I cheerfully signaled to the driver who opened the door. He asked me if I had a reservation with his company and I replied that I had. I boarded the bus and was about to sit down when I suddenly remembered my reservation was with Hertz. Well initially it had been with Enterprise until after I booked the trip I noticed they only offered a car with manual transmission. Now although I learnt to drive at 17 (in England) with manual transmission, I only passed my test at age 27 (in the US) with an automatic transmission. Never having driven a manual transmission car since, I was not about to re-learn at age 42 after a 6 hour flight, no sleep, and on a busy London road ! Thus, prior to traveling I had called the booking company to change to an automatic so they were forced to change the rental company. Anyway the bus driver, a dour Scot, scowled at me as he re-opened the door to discharge me onto the sidewalk. Never fear - the Hertz bus pulled up immediately, driven by an equally surly fellow, this time of Asian extraction again (!). Arriving at my true destination I entered the office area to be greeted by three women who worked behind the counter and all of the same ethnic extraction as the bus driver ! Things were about to go from bad to worse - the lady who dealt with me tried to push a manual transmission car onto me ! Not happy with my insistence on an automatic transmission she told me to have a seat while the car was prepared for me. Finally she issued me with the paperwork and told me to look for the car with license plate indicated in the parking lot.

The car was there but the last letter on the plate which should have read "F" (according to the paperwork) was in fact "E". Back into the office I went, and in a scene redolent of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, in which the "lady" in question the celebrated English actress - who only made it into films very late in her career in the 1930s - Dame May Whitty (in reality Mary Whitty - born and raised in Liverpool - according to her daughter's book The Same Only Different) puts in a stellar performance as a supposed governess (in reality a British spy) who is kidnapped - the office girl I had spoken to only minutes before had vanished and (like the 1930s film) had been replaced (by another ethnic girl) and she cleared up the mess, though not after I had spoken with the mechanic who had driven the car up for me to pick it up who clearly was Polish and understood little English and spoke even less.

In the office I spotted a photocopied map of the area and saw the street (right by the airport) upon which my hotel was located. "At least this would be easy !" I erroneously thought. I asked the lady at the counter how to negotiate the one-way system the map indicated - she gave a cursory explanation and fortified with this I left. Now try to imagine juggling this map, a print-off from the internet of directions to the hotel, (from the hotel chain itself) and (crucially) London traffic with no sleep in 48 hours, left side driving and not 1, not 2 but 3 fire trucks with sirens blaring as I exited the rental compound - talk about a Baptism with fire !

Well one thing I do really well is the roundabout - I always loved driving round those and indicating right and left and changing lanes, I did that at least as a pro ! Not so easy, was driving in a straight line, I can't tell you how many times I hit the curb with the left tires trying to stay away from the middle line. If that was bad enough I kept reaching for the controls with my right hand despite the fact everything required the left hand ! Couple, hitting the curb, using the right and not left hand and trying to read a map and separate directions which bore no resemblance at all to the map... I think you get the picture...oh, and the mad drivers honking at me from behind as I cut them off (or whatever). I was beginning to get panicky ! Anyway the hotel was right by the airport, but you would never have guessed that from the description or the map. It took me more than an hour of driving of trial and error to find it. Here I abandoned the map and just used pure Sherlock Holmes' deductive reasoning and, eventually I found it.

I parked the car, walked into the lobby, approached the main desk, the receptionist was a Caucasian (a change) but there was a heavy trace of an accent: "Ach, Ja !" she was German ! Here I saw another teller machine. I tried again to gain access to English currency - both cards were again most politely "declined". I took the elevator to my room, entered and sat down. It was 12 pm. I recited the Angelus and began to pray fervently for Divine assistance. I went to the window, looked out - I had a superb view of the airport. What was I going to do ? I could drive (hitting the curb and being honked at by indignant motorists) until the gas tank emptied out...I could stay in the hotel for 5 days, but I couldn't buy a Tube ticket 12 miles into London, I was stuck and all because I lacked money ! By now I was wandering around the room (or cell) and entered the bathroom and tried the light switch. The lights didn't come on ! That was surprising so I feverishly began trying switches all over the place - nothing worked. In fact the lack of electric current actually woke me up - I needed to return to the US (ASAP) if at all possible. I had decided what I should do, but how would it be achieved ?

+TF