I have received a lot of questions about Lindsay, though all of them have actually been one of two questions.

Q1: Who was Lindsay again?

A1: She was the physical therapist/gymnastics coach/bridesmaid that I met at the wedding whom I originally thought was married, though she was not. For reasons that are beyond the comprehension of every woman in the Central Ohio area, she was apparently interested in me. I have a theory regarding this matter and I will share it with you:
Fact 1: I saw the sun three times while I was in the Islands.
Fact 2: It was summer.
Theorem 1: The sun doesn’t appear very much in Britain.
Corollary 1: British people don’t have suntans very often.
Fact 3: I had been playing a lot of golf, so I had a very good tan from the neck up.

Therefore:
Conclusion 1: She thought I was black.
Postulate 1: She heard rumors.

And adding in:
Fact 4: She is on the mailing list.

We come to:
Conclusion 2: I will never, ever hear from her again.

With the logical proofs out of the way, we come to:
Q2: Did any sort of kinky shenanigans occur?
A2: No.

However, I did see her again before I left Britain. And that is the story I will relate to you now.

I awoke in the janitor’s closet they called a hotel room around 6:30 AM with the intention of going to the airport to meet Lindsay. I had spoken with her previously and we had agreed to meet at "half-eight" at Gatwick Airport. After figuring out that this was not 4:00 in the morning but rather 8:30, I agreed and a breakfast date was set. I was cleansed, ready and I got out of the hotel a little around 7:15 AM to get to the airport. I figured I had plenty of time. Wrong.

I have often stated that there are two things a person should never try to do in a hurry: shave and play golf. To this list should be added "try to get to the airport".

The Tube ride to Victoria Station took longer than I expected and I realized I was running a little late. In fact, I got there just in time to miss one of the twice-hourly Gatwick Express trains. So, I walked up to the vending machine where they sell tickets to discover that it wasn’t taking pound notes and that was the only currency I had. So, I walked over to the very long, very slow line where all the train tickets are sold and I began getting very frustrated and angry. I was trying to get to Gatwick to meet a girl in order to try to talk to her, but British Rail was making me wait when I was supposed to be meeting her in something like ten minutes and I had not even gotten my train ticket yet. This was bad. I got my ticket and just missed the next train to Gatwick. However, in my failed attempt to get to the platform on time, I passed the ticket window that exclusively sold Gatwick Express tickets. Tension was mounting. I called Lindsay to tell her I was going to be more than an hour late, though I have the feeling that the information I attempted to provide was in no way intelligible or useful.

The next thing I did was the only thing I could do: sit in the train station waiting for the next train to Gatwick, which did not leave for another 25 minutes. And I spent the intervening time stewing. I was angry and stressed because things were going bad quickly and everything I was trying to do to make them better only backfired doubly. By the time the next train left, with me on it this time, I had a sick, sinking feeling similar to the time I arrived at a job interview an hour and a half late.

I finally did get to the airport and, after much more blundering, called Lindsay’s mobile and met her at the pay phone I was using.

This seems like a good time to let everyone in on a couple of facts. The first is important, that being that I had, at some point during my trip, lost the ability to speak English. All that time spent with mostly nobody to talk to but myself had left me almost incapable of verbally compiling a sentence. For instance, when I arrived in Woking, I spent part of my cab ride from the train station to the hotel trying to remember the name of a place I had been to in California. I literally could not come up with the first inkling of what the name of the place was. After five minutes of nonsensical yammering in an attempt to find that name, I finally recalled that it was "Los Angeles".

Now then let’s add the paragraph above in with the fact I have never been particularly good at conversing with people I don’t know, least of all women who may be interested in me, and that tends to exaggerate the fact I sometimes stutter and often have trouble understanding what the other person is saying. Further, the only topic upon which I can expound at any length while sober is "college football". On top of that, the Brits tend to speak more quietly than Americans, as well as the fact they have something known as "foreign accents". Throw in the fact I was, by this time, rather flustered and embarrassed by my incompetence at getting to the airport anywhere near on time and it should be very clear that things were about to deteriorate. I could either stammer through an explanation of what the hell a tailback is and why Ne-Neb-b-braska was in trouble that year because they didn’t have one or I could try to keep her talking about herself and constantly interrupt her to have repeat her last sentence.

The second fact that I am going to let you in on is more just a side note: When I arrived at the airport, I still didn’t have any idea what time my flight left. Needless to say, Lindsay asked me what time my flight was supposed to take off and I could not give her an answer until we sat down for breakfast, leading her to the belated realization that I am a complete nincompoop.

I discovered that my flight left sometime around 2:00 and Lindsay had to leave for a gymnastics coaching session at 1:00. However, we had a little while to spend getting to know each other. We ate, we talked, everything seemed okay. I think I did pretty well at chewing with my mouth closed, so I was generally holding my own. However, everything soon hit the wall: the check came and Lindsay paid it.

Have you ever had your brain just lock up completely? For me, it occurs exactly when something completely unexpected happens that I had not even begun to anticipate and this was exactly that. I don’t know why this caused the brain lockup, it was, when you think about it, relatively minor and very nice of her, but my mind lost all ability to process. When this happens, my mind starts racing as I try to come up with a reaction to this and all of the reactions are usually completely inappropriate. Then I start talking without making any sense and I realize that I should really shut up but for some reason I become incapable of doing so. Thus it was when Lindsay paid the check. I felt bad for having this girl come out to the airport, wait something like an hour-and-a-half on my dumb ass, endure my conversation and, on top of that, pay for my breakfast. The ship was sinking fast.

I have almost no recollection of the next couple of hours. I seem to recall us informing each other of what sort of music we liked. She was listening to Travis, I was listening to the Ramones, neither of us had any clue what the other was talking about, which probably sums up everything else we told each other. As I realized things were going very, very badly, I was that much less able to carry the conversation, causing things to go worse in an unbreakable loop. Soon, all I wanted to do was either run away or hide under a rock, just as long as this disaster would stop happening again.

Eventually Lindsay, mercifully, needed to leave for her coaching session and I really needed to get into the very, very long line for the airline I was using. I said goodbye, another woman in line took our picture and that was probably the last I will ever see of her. Thus ended Lindsay Harris. Thus ended my trip. And thus, finally and almost one year after beginning, ends my story.