This is a tale of two Christmases - one dry, one wet, both extremely British.
The dry one happened on a Christmas morning two years ago, when I turned on the kitchen faucet and nothing came out. Not a great way to face the day, with a feast for ten to be prepared.
Neighbors started calling. “Do you have water? We lit’rally have no water!”
(Note: British women are in love with the word lit’rally. Any five-minute conversation with a British woman contains at least one lit’rally.)
A local water main break was to blame - no telling when it would be fixed. We’re not the kind of people who sit around in a situation that calls for panic, so off I hurried to the local shop - the British equivalent of a bodega - to load up on bottled water.
“As much as you can carry!” my wife shouted after me.
Well, I wasn’t looking forward to that. My mind went into New York City mode, and the unpleasantness to come: pushing and shoving, people cutting in line, maybe even a fist fight or two. The kind of mayhem they report so gleefully on Fox News.
But when I got to the shop, I was stunned. An orderly line of customers seeking water snaked out the door and halfway down the block, advancing at a pace that could only be called….civilized.
The old guy directly in front of me had to be crowding ninety - flat cap on his head, cane in hand, with a red nose that could have led Santa’s sleigh. He turned to me with a smile.
“We’ll get though this all right, I expect!” he said, his voice bouncy and cheerful.
And it hit me: this man was probably hiding with his parents under a staircase when Nazi bombs were falling on London, and rations were in effect, and Winston Churchill was urging everyone to keep calm and carry on.
Waiting for water? Big deal. At least we won’t be digging ourselves out of the rubble tomorrow!
No wonder Brits don’t mind lining up, and waiting as long as it takes for whatever they need. World War II put it in their gene codes. Stick to the rules, no matter what.
Anyway, the water main was fixed before noon, so we lit’rally didn’t need the ten Evian bottles I hauled home.
The wet Christmas happened the year before, when we were heading to Kim’s parents in the British countryside and ran smack into a flood.
No kidding - waves were lapping toward us on the highway, and the village beyond it looked like Venice. Of course, this being England, it was also raining.
The only thing to do was drive over the median barrier and head home, which meant rolling over the world’s soggiest turf. Kim gave it a shot, but the rear wheels of the car sank into the mud, spinning away.
I got out to push. I had a paper cup of coffee in one hand as I put my shoulder to the trunk - pardon me, the boot - and pushed, to no avail. Mud flew all over me. I tossed the coffee cup aside to push with both hands, and the car surged forward.
The guy behind us honked his horn. I turned to him, with the best what’s-your-problem New York face I could muster. He stuck his bulldog head out the driver side window, his jowls jiggling.
“Here now,” he said, “that won’t do!”
I didn’t know what he meant, until he pointed at my discarded coffee cup. He was letting me have it for littering, in the midst of a flood.
How British can you get? I laughed out loud, picked up the cup, waved goodbye to my self-appointed parole officer and got back in the car.
“What’s so funny?” Kim asked.
I wiped mud from my face. “Honey,” I said, “I lit’rally got yelled at for litt’ring.”
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