Flashback

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Caro has been working hard all day. She is about to go on holiday for two weeks while she has her operation, and she wants to hand over a tidy desk to her colleague. Consequently, unless you want to know about the goings-on in Midsomer, I have not much in the way of news for you.

So I decided to revisit the archives and found this email I sent to you in the Spring of 2000. Basically, on Caro's 27th birthday in January of that year I told her that her present was a weekend in New York City*.

We went in May, I think. Here's my account of that little adventure:

S.

New York! The City that Never Sleeps! So good they named it twice! 
I had a lot of preconceptions about New York. They were born of films. I had this whole "Death Wish" paranoia thing going. I didn't want to be mugged! I didn't want to be murdered! I didn't want to be kidnapped and hooked on crack-cocaine and forced to become a ho' and have my pimp smack me around unless I gave him the green, baby. 

In fact, this didn't happen. 

Then there was the "Cagney and Lacey" fantasy. I wanted to be Christine, even if it meant I had to have a drink problem. But Caro told me she didn't want to be the one who was pregnant all the time. 

On arrival, it was horrid and drizzly, but people were sufficiently rude and brusque to make me feel like I had stepped right into one of my favourite tv shows. 

We got to the Hotel Metro, which was a very nice art deco hotel. Actually the whole of New York kind of puts you in a 30's time warp if you look up and use your imagination and ignore the people with the mobile phones. If you try hard, you can almost see in black-and-white and hear James Cagney and the Dead End kids.... 

"Why oi oughta!!" 
"What's the big oidea?" 

Well, almost. The first day we exhausted ourselves shopping and walking and shopping and walking and walking and walking and walking. It didn't help that I did my usual job on navigation, confused north with south and almost ended up walking Caro to Times Square via Statten Island. That night, I decided we had to do something exotic and New York-y and so tried to find a fabulous Korean restaurant that was near our hotel. But with me navigating again, we ended up at a Japanese instead. 

Really. I shouldn't be allowed out.

On our way back we decided to go up the Empire State Building. I loved the impressive lobby, but the view from the 86th floor was spectacular - the whole of New York down there, lit up. I took pictures. They came out completely black. But I KNOW that it was beautiful. We had some very silly pictures taken of ourselves with King Kong, then joined a queue to get out, but found out we were actually queued to go UP - to the 102nd floor with an irritating teacher who treated the whole thing like it was some military operation - squawking into his walkie-talkie and flirting with the 12 year old girls. Big perv.
 
The next day we decided to take it a bit easier. We walked up to Times Square where Caro happily eavesdropped on people at the tables behind us who were discussing the Emmys and the Tonys with incredible enthusiasm on mobile phones. They may have been calling each other. It wouldn't have surprised me. 

One bizarre thing about Caro's time in New York was that her bowels locked for the first 2 days. I mean - how is this possible? I can't go a few hours without unloading a decent shit but Caro was holding onto it like it was the Elgin marbles. (I assume it was about the same weight and consistency by the time it left her system). 

So that night in the hotel, she Entered the Bathroom amid great preparation and prefixed by an announcement to stay well clear. 
The next thing I heard was "Symon! Symon! Help!" 

Yes, she'd had a toilet incident. 

Whatever it was that Caro had dropped was well and truly wedged round the U-bend and I was called in to help. I have to say right now that there was NO POO in the toilet. Thank god. Or Caro would have found out exactly what the limit of my love is, as I checked myself into another room and left her with the floodwater rising round her ankles. 

However, I know how to handle a blocked bog, so I filled it with hot water until we heard the Happy Sound. 

(glorrrp) 

Which means our little friend had made his way to the Atlantic after all. 

Afterward, we went shopping. Caro had bought me combat pants which were excellent for New York. I was a bit paranoid about being pick-pocketed because all the tourist guides warn about it and the streets of Times Square were thronging. Combat pants are great because you can distribute your valuables throughout your legs. Basically, unless a pick-pocket managed to have it away with my trousers without me noticing, I would be ok. The downside was that when I wanted to pay for anything I had to rummage through about 10,000 pockets to find my credit card. It was kind of like, "Hmmm - behind this zip - no - behind this one? No. Behind this one? Whoops - that's my willy. Sorry I don't have anything smaller ha ha ha..." 

I actually accomplished more in terms of buying than Caro did. Perhaps that's because I let her do most of it for me. We would walk into a store, and by the time I made it to the fitting rooms she had dropped half of the contents of "Old Navy" in my arms. I have to admit that my CD buying went out of control as well. I now have enough CD's to roof a semi-detached house. 

That night for dinner we got Chinese take-out and it came in those little boxes like you see in the films where lawyers have to work late on a case and then the lady takes off her glasses and the bloke realises she's been beautiful all along and they have a forbidden office romance. Also there were fortune cookies. 

The next day we decided to cut back on the shopping and concentrate on touristy things. We caught the bus down to Battery Park and then the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. I had to admit to being quite impressed with the Statue of Liberty - I thought I would be very blase about it. But it's such a VIGOROUS sort of statue - thrusting that torch up in the air as if to say "EFF OFF! I'VE GOT A EFFING HUUUGE TORCH!! GO ON! TRY SOMETHING!! BA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!" The statue has a point - it IS a big torch. Unless they build another large statue carrying an equally huge marshmallow, there's nothing much to threaten the Statue of Liberty. 

Getting pictures of Caro was impossible. Every time I asked her to pose she looked grumpy. According to my photo collection I'm involved with the grumpiest woman in New Zealand. I took to just snapping pictures of her when she wasn't expecting it instead. So now I look like I'm involved with the most surprised woman in New Zealand instead. 

That night we went to see "Footloose The Musical". It was kind of entertaining in a very cheesy and crap sort of way. Caro's favourite bit of the show was when one of the characters was asked what there was to do in their small town and he did the Internationally Recognised Sign For Having A Bit of Wank. 

A small child next to Caro said, "What's that?" - "Nothing! Nothing!" hissed the mother.
 
Afterwards we went to a restaurant of Caro's choosing. "Mars 2112" is a restaurant in which you are invited to either walk to your table or "take the flight". I'm glad we took the flight, which flew us out of the atmosphere into an Earth-orbit, through a wormhole, into another dimension, past sight and sound and then to Mars which looks strangely exactly like a "Star Trek" set. Who would have thought it? 

The food was great - the best we had in New York, but not as cool as the surroundings which included twinkling stars and comets in the ceiling. Apparently an alien attacks the diners at certain times but we arrived too late. Thank eff. 

On our final night we went to see the off-Broadway show "Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding" a wonderful semi-improvised show at which you (as the guests at a wedding) interract with the actors. 

Highlights of the show were the Father of the Groom who greeted me by shouting, "Hey - you're lookin' good! Glad you lost the toupee - that wasn't workin' for ya!" 

We got sat with Uncle Louie and Aunt Rose who told us we had to help her look after Uncle Louie, "He has terrible diarrhoea, the poor man."

It was wonderful - Tina's mother passed out on the floor - we all had to sing "Volare" and dance to the Birdie Song - dinner was brought out with a wave of Italian flags to the "Godfather" theme - Tony pushed Tina's face in the cake - the Priest ("Fadder Happy Hour") got drunk. 

So we had packed a lot into our long weekend and we were sad to be leaving. Packing was a bit fraught. Mainly because it was interrupted by -  "Symon! Symon! Heeeeeelp! I've done it agaaain!" 

This time it was a Biblical Flood of a block. The waters were rising and only Moses could hold them back - no amount of hot water would help. So I did the only thing I could to stop it getting worse (grab the ball by the cock, if you'll pardon the expression). 

Meanwhile Caro faced the humiliation of finding a chambermaid armed with a plunger. (Although, come to think of it, I don't know that she didn't blame the whole thing on me). The chambermaid came in, rolled up her sleeves, earned a huge tip and saved the day. 

Then it was back to Dublin... then on to Edinburgh. It hadn't been long enough - we had only just got into our stride. 

Would I go back? Put it this way. If it had been possible, I wouldn't have left. 

* Man, I have regretted that EVER SINCE. Start small and build UP with your presents, Symon.