Drift Reality > London, England > The Passport 4

Although it had been about two months since my twenty-sixth birthday, something - either a sub-conscious refusal to believe I was on the wrong side of my twenties or an institutive belief that younger people pay less for things - compelled me to answer, "Yes."

"Okay, it will be seventy pounds each," she stated bluntly as my heart dropped slightly.

Slowly, I reached for my wallet and began to take my credit card out. All the while, I could feel Mary's eyes on me, full of concern that I was about to have a nervous breakdown.

Time slowed as I handed my card across the counter while the woman behind the ticket counter scanned my passport.

"Are you older than twenty-six?" she asked.

I looked at her blankly, not wanting to answer. After a few uncomfortable moments, I answered lamely, "I'm not older than twenty-six." Which technically, was a true statement.

Shaking her head in annoyance, she decided to change her line of questioning and asked, "How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-six."

She then made the sound that Londoners have perfected - a loud sigh that simultaneously tells you first, how difficult their lives are to begin with; and second, how your presences has managed to make their life infinitely worse.

"Well, it's going to be 140 pounds then," she said.

"I already knew that," I answered.

"No, I don't think you understand," she responded. "It's going to be 140 pounds for your ticket, plus the 70 pounds for her ticket, for a total of 210 pounds."

Doubts about Paris began flooding my mind. After all, hadn't I heard about how rude the Parisians were? I never really liked French food very much, and museums had always made me feel like I was about to die of suffocation and boredom at the same time.

I then looked at Mary and thought about how she had gotten plane tickets for both of us and made reservations at a hotel for four nights despite the fact she was a student with no income, and had been talking about the trip for the past month.

For some strange reason, a memory flashed in my mind of an evening in San Diego spent at a trendy restaurant with my girlfriend at the time and her roommate, a lovely woman in her mid-thirties named Maggie.

As we were finishing up, I was startled to see we had somehow managed to accumulate a $250 bill. Seeing that her two companions were obviously distraught over the size of the bill, Maggie had grabbed it away and despite the fact she wasn't in the financial situation to do so, swallowed the entire thing herself.

She silenced both my companion and my demands to chip in with a single phrase - "It's my choice to spend my money however I want."

For some reason, her simplistic conclusion seemed overwhelmingly profound. Although I'd be lying if I claimed my own cheapness and secret desire to not pay a dime didn't have something to do with my acceptance of her statement, there was something in the way she had said it which signified something deeper.

Ultimately, there was not question about what I was supposed to do in that situation. Maybe it was my karma that had put me in the situation, but it was my choice to pay the equivalent of $400 so we could get on the last train to Paris. Somehow, the knowledge that it was my choice filled me with a sense of relief.

Perhaps I would be condemned to a diet of ramen noodles when I returned to the States, but for now, I was heading to Paris.

Looking up from my reverie, I saw the woman staring at me impatiently.

"Do you take MasterCard?" I asked.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4