Life... With No Breaks (A laugh-out-loud comedy memoir) (11 page)

I’m hoping Grisham will have to get up for a tinkle himself and I can follow him to the cubicles.

This doesn’t happen.

With desperation finally overcoming my innate Britishness, I try to get up.

The American’s head slithers down my shoulder until it reaches a painful angle, which brings her out of her REM filled happiness with a start.

She offers me a bleary look, turns her head and immediately goes off again.

With her safely dealt with, it’s time to take on the literature fan.

Mumbling apologies, I stand up and start to edge past him, deathly afraid turbulence will kick in and I’ll end up sitting in his lap. Thankfully though, I’m spared this.

I do however lose my grip on the seat in front and thump the teenager sitting there in the side of the head.

She lets out a cry of astonishment, which makes me jerk backwards and poke my arse into Grisham’s face. He lets out a muffled exclamation and I swiftly move my hips forward, clouting my genitals on the back of the chair.

This makes me jerk backwards again.

Now it looks like I’m trying to hump a British Airways economy class seat.

Getting my wayward body back under control, I say sorry to both irate teen and dumbfounded Grisham reader and finish negotiating the exit from my sky-bound prison.

With both of them giving me daggers, I lope off up the aisle to the toilet, where I hurriedly shut myself off from the outside world and urinate with a bliss that’s virtually indescribable.

I leave the cubicle, resigned to another six hours in the seat from Hell, when I spot three empty ones in the central section of the plane.

I couldn’t have been happier to see those seats if they’d been three feet wide and had a massage unit built into them.

I gather up my belongings from the overhead compartment - trying not to look at my teenage sparring partner or Grisham - and hurry back to the three seats at speed, wanting to get there before any of the other cattle reach the same conclusion and steal them out from under me.

While the rest of the flight to Minnesota was not what I would call pleasant, at least I had the luxury of a bit of space to stretch out my legs, and didn’t have the worry of mortally offending someone every time I felt the urge to take a leak.

Arriving at Minnesota was when the stupidity of getting a connecting flight became apparent.

When you’ve just spent nine hours on a flight with your legs cramped and your brain slowly turning to fudge, it isn’t nice to know you have a further
three hours
to go before you reach your final destination.

Before even getting on the domestic flight, I had to negotiate my way around Minneapolis airport, which was gigantic. I think I’m right in saying that it covered most of the state itself and requires detailed maps to find your way around its mammoth terminals.

None of which is very helpful when you’re knackered, in desperate need of a smoke and wishing you’d stayed in bed watching Desperate Housewives.

Never mind,
I thought,
I’m sure if I get lost I can ask a friendly airport staff member the way.

I did get lost. In roughly sixteen seconds.

Admittedly, I didn’t help my cause by leaving the airport for a swift cigarette in the freezing cold mid-west weather outside.

Totally baffled by concourses, travelators and ill-conceived signage, I approached a security guard to ask him directions.

‘Hello mate, help me out here, will you?’ I said in jovial fashion.

‘What’cho want?’ he replied aggressively, not really living up to my idealised concept of a helpful staff member.

‘Er, can you tell me how to get to Gate 43?’

‘You some kind of fucking moron, pal?’

Okay, so the security guards at Minneapolis are incredibly rude, then.

Point duly noted.

I immediately saw red. I do not need a fat security guard taking a pop at me when I’m exhausted, lost and confused.

‘What did you call me?’ I hissed.

‘A moron, pal. A goddamn moron.’

‘Who the hell do you think you are, mate?’

My feathers are ruffled, my back is up and I’m ready to start swinging.

‘I’m a guy who found out last night his woman is fucking another guy and is pretty damn pissed… I’m also the guy with a gun.’

He points at the black metal killing machine parked in a holster on his belt.

I’d forgotten about that.

Forgotten that in America, they’ll give anyone who works in security a gun, even if they look like Charles Manson and twitch slightly when somebody mentions ethnic minorities.

It’s amazing what the effect of a firearm can have on an angry temperament - when the gun is carried by the other person, that is.

My body language changes from 'irate British person in need of accurate directions’ to ‘terrified British person, about to start crying like a girl'.

I find myself apologising a lot in life for mistakes I make, but I’ve never felt saying sorry was ever as vital to my continued well-being as it was at this moment.

He cuts me off in mid-flow.

I think he realised he’d pretty much threatened an airport customer with his gun and started to back-peddle magnificently in an effort of self-preservation.

We both stand there spouting apologies - and then accepting them from one another with good grace. I even went as far as to commiserate with him on the infidelity of his partner.

I suggested he should go and have it out with her.

Without the gun, that is.

I finished by asking - very politely this time - where Gate 43 might be. He gave me a wry grin and pointed upwards.

Above us was a very large, very brightly lit sign with a huge arrow pointing up the concourse with
Gates 39-45
in very large writing beside it.

I thanked him sheepishly and wandered away, not surprised he’d thought I was a moron. I was grateful he hadn’t just pulled out the gun and shot me point-blank on the understandable grounds I was an unobservant idiot.

My luck changed for the better once I’d boarded the connecting flight. I found to my astonishment and delight that the miracle of bulkhead seats had been visited on me for the first time.

It was like all my Christmases and birthdays had been rolled into one, as the stewardess led me to H8, next to the exit doors.

I couldn’t believe it. It was so good I still remember the seat number to this day.

After nine hours of feeling like a battery hen, I had a seat that allowed me not only to stretch my legs out, but the chance to get up when I felt like a little stretch.

Heaven
.

A supremely smug smile spread across my face and I made a point of flashing it at as many of the other passengers as I could during the flight to Vegas. I was almost sorry to leave the plane, wanting to ride my unexpected change of fortune for as long as possible.

I got out of McCarran airport quite quickly and less than an hour after touching down, I was in my hotel room with a can of beer shoved in my hand by a semi-drunk cousin James.

What happened during the actual four days I spent there is a story all its own and I’ll tell you about it later.

Promise.

6.21 am

24495 Words

Twelve hours in!

Twelve hours and listen - it sounds like we’ve got some friends celebrating the milestone with us.

Can you hear them?

The dawn chorus has started with a vengeance and my feathered friends are heralding a new day in the only way they know how.

Thousands of birds, all basically shouting:

‘This is my tree! Fuck off!’

Kind of takes the romance away when you know that, doesn’t it?

Want some breakfast? I know it’s probably too early and the sun’s only just over the horizon, but I’ve got some pop-tarts in the fridge. You’ll have to eat them cold, as the toaster is still knackered. It met with Spalding’s towering rage after destroying a raisin crumpet I was particularly looking forward to. You can try sticking the pop tart in the George Foreman, but I’m not making any promises it’ll work.

I’ll just smoke another cigarette if you don’t mind.

While we’re on the subject of cigarettes… you might want to strap yourself in, this is likely to get a bit bumpy.

Smoking.

I
love
it.

Sorry to all you non or ex-smokers out there, but I do.

Yes, I know its bad for me and yes, I know it’s expensive.

My lungs may be full of tar and my chest may wheeze like an asthmatic asbestos cleaner, but I love it anyway.

Partially, this is out of spite.

I can be a very stubborn man and when it comes to smoking, this part of my personality comes out in spades. Chances are that if smoking was still an accepted part of society no-one complained about, I would have quit years ago.

But its not, is it?

Oh no
.

It seems there’s nothing worse these days than pulling out a pack of ciggies and lighting one up. People look at you like you’re a leper. They point and wail in disgust as you draw on your little white tube of chemical nastiness. They pompously tell you it’s affecting their health through passive smoking.

Good.

Fuck ‘em
.

The more they moan, the more I smoke.

If people would just shut up about it and leave me be, I’d be more amenable to putting the packet back in my coat and chewing some sugar-free gum instead.

Everybody has an opinion on whether you can quit or not, like they have some divine oracle-like wisdom about your chances of kicking the habit that you’re not privy to.

Just before I got married, I decided to quit - well, I thought about it anyway.

I made the mistake of talking to people about my intentions.

In idle conversation, I’d say I was thinking about quitting and how it would be nice to count on their moral support. I especially did this with my non-smoking friends. After all, they would be more than happy to usher me into their healthy ranks, surely?

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Instead of helpful tips on how to quit, or assurances they’d be there when I needed a bit of cheering up, I got this:

‘Oh, you’ll never quit.’

 ‘I bet you can’t quit for long.’

Oh thanks, that’s very helpful isn’t it?

That really motivates me to make the grand leap into the world of patches and chewing gum.

It was the smokers around me who gave me the support I craved - pun intended. They were the ones to nod understandingly and offer words of encouragement.

Isn’t that totally arse about face?

The ones you think you can count on for help put you down, and the ones you’d think would be unhelpful turn out to be your saviours.

It’s a phenomenon I’ve never come across before.

In no other situation does it apply.

Let’s use something as an analogy for it, shall we? Something that’ll exemplify my point nicely:

Politics.

You are a Tory.

You’ve voted Tory all your adult life. You liked the way Thatcher ran things and didn’t mind the fact she took away the milk break at schools. The privatisation of the country’s infrastructure didn’t affect you in the slightest and you even like the colour blue.

Now, over the past few months you’ve been thinking about not voting Tory anymore. You’ve been thinking about quitting the party. Giving it up.

Nothing’s really been the same since Maggie left and you’ve just started realising how much tax you paid in the eighties.

You only have one alternative: Labour.

Sure, there are the Liberal Democrats, but if we stick to our smoking analogy, that’d be like giving up proper cigarettes to smoke those cheap herbal ones that smell like dog shit.

…no, you’re right, I’d never make much of a political commentator.

Now you’ve made your decision, you’d like to chat to your friends to sound them out.

Applying the same attitude when discussing smoking, this is the response you’d get:

All the Labour voters would tell you not to bother trying because you’ll be back voting Tory in a few months. All the Conservatives would recommend you swap allegiances immediately, because voting Labour is far better for you and puts more money in your pocket.

You see?

Crackers
.

Totally gonzo, in my opinion.

Incidentally, the last passage represents the sum total of Spalding’s contribution to politics within the pages of this book. I don’t vote and never will, until such time as I’m presented with a political choice that is exactly that: a
choice
.

All politicians in this country bleed into one as far as I’m concerned, with any real policies buried under a mountain of spin, sound-bites and sleaze allegations. Anything funny I could say about them doesn’t hold a candle to the kind of hi-jinks they seem to get into all by themselves.

Anyway, back to the point:

I’d like to say something out to all the anti-smoking organisations out there that spend millions of pounds each year trying to make us stop:

There’s no point trying to educate us anymore.
We know it all
.

Every smoker is now fully aware of how bad it is, how many chemicals there are killing us slowly and how it makes us smelly and unpopular at social occasions.

You don’t need to spend any more cash on heart-felt advertisements, featuring wan ex-smokers hooked up to life support machines.

The fact is, we know it’s a terrible habit and if we could stop, we
would
!

All you’re accomplishing with your efforts is to annoy us incessantly:

‘Smokers! Look how awful smoking is! Why do you do it? It’s bad for you!’

We bloody
know
!

We may be smokers, but we’re also free-thinking individuals who can arrive at a conclusion without you ramming it down our throats at every opportunity!