Honorable Mention II

I also forgot to mention that whilst in St. Paul's, we went down into the crypt to look at the graves of famous dead people. There’s a lot of them down there. Something I noticed is that over the years, many of the effigies and marble busts have very polished noses. That’s because people rub them for luck (or something). So that’s exactly what I had in mind when I came upon the bronze bust of Lawrence of Arabia.

I quickly looked around for security cameras and tour guides. Nothing in sight other than my daughter Elissa at my side. I raised my hand to give his nose a good rubbing for good luck (of an Arabian kind). I must have startled him because for some dumb reason the bust is not attached to the shelf. That means any dumb tourist can come along and rub his nose and almost knock him off his final resting place. And that is exactly what happened.

Thank God my Ninja skills kicked into play because I barely caught that heavy statue. As I muscled his 50 lb head back into place restoring it’s balance I was imagining the headlines:

“Stupid American tourist breaks the head of beloved Lawrence of Arabia wide open on beloved funeral floor of beloved St. Paul’s Cathedral bringing shame to his country and great dishonor to all Arabia’s everywhere. We shall forever hate him Britishly.”

But I must confess that while I was thinking about that headline and wondering if I could get that huge head back on the shelf, I was also looking for a place to either run or fake a seizure and perhaps tinkle a bit just for effect and sympathy. Then the headline would have read:

“Poor American tourist has terrible seizure, falls over hitting Lawrence of Arabia’s head causing it to break on the floor then urinating his American-style shorts bringing no shame to himself whatsoever on account of the copious piddle and flailing about because no one would piss their pants on purpose that much."

After that incident we found Sheri in the Crypt Snack Shoppe (I’m not kidding). We all bought some bottled water and Sheri ate some kind of dessert cup. I told her I almost knocked Lawrence of Arabia’s head off a shelf because I rubbed his nose too hard. Elissa said, "Yeah, he did. It was really heavy." Sheri said, “That’s nice” then finished her brownie something. After 22 years of marriage, nothing I do phases her at all.