March 17, 2003

• 
  Driving in to work last Wednesday morning, I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw a lime green porsche.
  
  How many of you can truthfully hold up your hands and say that you did the same? In my neighbourhood, I can assure you, lime green porsches are thin on the ground.
  
  As the lights ahead changed to red, the driver gunned the engine and slipped into the outside lane, then drew up alongside me as we slowed down and stopped at the line. The lime green porsche was making expensive sports car noises over to my right as I turned my head to look at the driver. I wanted to know who’d drive such a car and don’t you go pretending that you wouldn’t have done the same thing.
  
  Now, before I get into the next bit, you need a little background on my psychological state that day. When I was in my early twenties, I used to hitch hike a lot. There’s a story I could tell you about how the land called out to me to travel its length and breadth and when I’d had my fill of that, of how my thumb carried me across the sea to Europe where together (my thumb and I) we traversed more lengths and breadths and met many an adventure and frolicked (my thumb and I) with many a frolicsome wench. I could tell you that story, but I shouldn’t, because not a word of it would be true. Except the bit about adventures and wenches. The reason I hitched was because I was a poor student and couldn’t afford the train.
  
  Anyway, what I wanted to say was that whenever I was hitch hiking, in England or on the Continent, every time I saw an expensive sports car something synapsed in my brain and a message flashed into my thoughts:
  
  “It’s going to be driven by a fabulously gorgeous woman who also just happens to be a nymphomaniac. And she’s got her best friend with her, who also just happens to be fabulously gorgeous and very generous with her favours. And they’re going to see me and stop to offer me a lift and I’m going to get in and they’re going to take me to their house and fuck me silly.”
  
  Now that you know that important part of the story, you’ll understand that in the second or so that it took to turn my head to look at the driver, exactly the same message flashed into my head. That’s what I mean when I talk about my psychological state that day.
  
  So I’m hoping against hope that maybe this time there really will be fabulously gorgeous women in my immediate future as my eyes swing over to the open window of the lime green porsche and see
  
  
  Claudia Schiffer.
  
  
  And she smiles in surprise at me. And says, “Wow. A gaijin. Do you live here?”
  
  I tell her that I do, silently begging the lights to stay red forever. And then, incredibly, she says, “Hey, do you fancy going for a cup of coffee?”
  
  Now, at this point I should really tell you about the next few moments in which the lights changed to green and things got a bit awkward and involved horns and angry looks from other drivers, but I’m going to skip over that part and go straight to the bit where she says, “OK, follow me back to my hotel then.”
  
  And that was last Wednesday morning and I only just got home today.
  
  Which is why you haven’t heard from me for nearly a week.
  
  OK?
  

  • 10:34 am
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