Me and Cindy

This story uses bad language (arts skills) and may be offensive to Orientals

Second week, Thursday.

In addition to bringing my ass over here to help with this new, sales initiative, my company decides to bring a person from the Eastern office. Her name is Cindy, she is Taiwanese; the real pronunciation of her name can only be heard or spoken by aquatic mammals. She is very nice, if I had to guess, only because i know her work history, I'd say 35. You know how, Asian women can either be 17 or 90, like over 90 you can sort of tell their age, but if they're 65, they might as well be 20. She speaks pretty good English but with a seriously awesome Asian flare. Like she will say "Learry." I'll be like, yeah in the Houston office we always include the industry code on each sales order (gosh, I know, riveting), and she's always like "Learry." Go ahead say it out loud, it helps me. When i was a kid, i used to say "Leyyow" or "Bayyet, " Ls and Ys gave me some trouble (please don't ask, why, as a child, i was constantly saying ballet). Well Cindy is not too good with her Rs and Ls. Keep this in mind for later.

Cind and I, actually share a car. So far since i was in London last weekend, and i walk my happy ass to work everyday, i haven't actually driven it. Which is fine, i am in no hurry to end my life in a blue on black coffin with wheels. Today, her bags and a couple of boxes arrive from quarantine and customs. It is quite a lot, like two huge treasure chests and 4 nap sacks, no doubt filled with kimonos, hobuki make-up, plum sauce and bird Flu. I tell her that I will help her load it in the station wagon, she can't lift any item, but tries to with each parcel. After all the shit is loaded, I look at her, and thoughtfully ask if she needs me to go with her to help unload it at her place.

Cindy is staying with the personal assistant to the managing director of our Ltd. Barbara is an older woman and helped both of us with our VISAs and accommodations. Well, Cindy is going to live with her for the next year and instead of the £1100 monthly living allowance, going to Cindy, it goes to Barb directly. Where as i have found a place that is £700 a month and i get the rest to drink away. Shady. Barbara and her husband are very kind and i am sure that they treat Cindy with the utmost respect, but I cant help but think Cindy washes their cars and serves them breakfast in bed wearing a apron. They invite friends to come over and make Cindy act out each fight scene in Crouching Tiger, and for an encore she dances to the soundtrack of the theatrical version of Fame.

Cindy is definitely going to need help getting her monster luggage up two flights of stairs to the uninsolated 5-foot ceiling attic space where her caretakers have jammed a twin matress into for her. So, we leave work early and I get in the passenger side of the car to ride with her on to Barbara's house. I can tell right away that Cindo is not comfortable with manual transmissions, because we head rattlingly stall in the parking lot. I ask her if she likes driving in the UK, and she basically tells me the only driving she has done so far is to work this morning. She revs the engine, drops the clutch and parking brake simultaneously, as the front wheels shout, we turn right out of the office onto the black village streets.

I try my best to stay calm, as we disregard pedestrians and oncoming cars, i ask how long till we get there, really I mean how many more minutes of life do i have. She hits me with "Fifteen." The radio is on and it is obviously a Dance/Mix station, because the DJ sounds everything but heterosexual. Cindy looks at the radio and says, " I rove this song." Great, Scobby-Doo is fucking driving me; I think, as she cranks up the volume as far as it goes. The beginning of the song sounds like two girls talking, then in unison, the radio and Cindy scream, "They're not gonna get us." Oh yes, i am in a car with an Asian singing the pinnacle of British pop music: Tatu. Meanwhile, not yielding at any intersections, we take turns and slopes like Rusty Wallace. Oh,did i mention it was raining.

Okay fifteen minutes come and go, and the only thing that I am happy about is that the next song is definitely "Butterfly" and it appears that little Cindy is not too familiar with Mariah Carey lyrics, but as it is Double Thursday on this fag station, "We Belong Together" sends Sammy into a fit of extreme ecstasy. She tries to turn up the radio, but my bleeding ears smile when she realizes it has been maxed out..

"Rah, Roh," Scobby exclaims, with a finger between her teeth. I look at her and ask if she is okay. She tells me that she must have made a wrong turn. I'm like fuck. We are two towns over from my little village and I am completely reliant on fucking Vasco De Gamma here to get me to the place she lives. We pull over and, for the first time, she pulls out the directions, mind you, we have been driving for nearly 30 minutes. She mumbles to herself and points her fingers to either side. Pensive, her snapdragon face tries to recollect the 12 or so turns we took.

She holds her hand up and says, "We should have taked a reft turln at churlch." The only thing is she is pointing to her LIGHT.

I am like, "Cindy, left is this direction," aiming my finger out the passenger window.

She shakes her head and stumbles, "Reft, Reft, Reft," with her fist now, motioning to the right. I think Oh Lord and ask if i can see the directions. It is a folded piece of white computer paper, obviously written by her care takers:

Jarvis -L

Turnaround-R

Church St. -R

Turnaround -R

House -L

Realizing now that the L/R thing has been my ultimate down fall. We have no idea where we are, and the Black Eyed Peas are just now telling us to "...Get it Started." Neither one of us has a cel phone and I don't know how to explain where we want to go. "Excuse me sir, can you tell me where Barbara Hookensomething lives?" I would look like a fucking moron. But i get out of the car and walk into the Petrol station across the street.

The guy behind the counter is wretched; he has an elbow for an Adam's apple and his grill looks like a rusty bear trap. I look at the unrefridgerated beer on the wall, and seriously have to talk myself down. i ask this greasy guy, where Church Street is, he replies in pretty much all vowels. It was like he was holding his tongue while describing the longest way to get to the most generic name of a street I can fathom. I finally get him to just point the directions to me after having to ask him to "slow it down" more that twice.

Back in the car, Cindy, oblivious to the details of our circumstance, has the window down and is pumping Destiny's Child, out the draft car like we are at a fucking baseball game. I consider, turning around and completely abandoning her, but I slide the door open and look at her carefree face. We sort out the directions and get back on track, finally, Cindy says that she recognizes something and we pull into the carpark of a modest home. Fortunately it takes 5 minutes and the burning smell of clutch-on-flywheel wear for Cindy to park in this one-spot drivewayand i get to hear the new Jamiroquai single, so that was good.

Barbara's husband is the home and he is only like 100, so I begin my servitude and haul my terrible mistake up several stairs and down narrow halls. I notice, the two of them have sat down and are talking, even though I still have like three more trips from the car to her 7 square foot room, I mean, fuck ,could someone at least prop the door open for me. I have had this hang nail for like a week. To say it throbs would be an understatement; I can tell my resting heart rate by counting my pulsating big toe. Once through, the last thing I want to do is hang out with this china doll and a fucking British Woody Allen. I tell them, that I need to meet someone at 7 and I need to change before hand, this was like telling a dog someone has just passed away, I don't know if they didn't understand, or didn't care.

So it is like 9:30 and after a meal, a tapeworm would refuse, chased by chestnut pie and piss tea, I have had enough repeating my answers to the most inane questions; once to the non-native speaker and again to the geriatric patient. "No, Austin, Texas...not Boston, central Texas...yes i know I don't have a Boston accent, I am from Austin in Texas!" The noise from his hearing aid is making all the glasses behind me shake from the high pitched resonance; the dog next door can't stop barking.

Finally, I look at a sleepy faced Cindy, and I ask her to take my life into her hands. She hands me the keys and says, "Barlbarla will take me to wolk tomollow." Oh, how great, thanks for leaving me for dead. I am super excited that I came over here and wasted my night with you and the old wizard from Harry Potter, and now i get to practice my apology speech to St. Peter, maybe we should Saki-bomb before I go, that work certainly make my drive home more interesting. You know, i work with this lady and i don't want to come off as a whiny bitch who cant cope, so I take the keys and head for the front door; the old man tells me that I will have to come back again soon. I shoot a really quick single laugh and I let the door slam behind me.

Growing up in Texas and California, i can remember at birthday parties, we would do the pinata thing, b/c, well, all my childhood friends were Mexican. What, I'm tan, they thought i was too. We would also play pin the tail on the donkey. Cindy had blind folded me, spun me around several times and now I have to find my way home. I have grasped the left lane concept and can even make flawless turns, its not raining anymore, and i really feel like I am going the correct direction. I know you're thinking, I crash or clip a stroller, but actuallyI manage to find the road home and miss the majority of curbs. So the story ends, I can drive in the UK now.