An amusing and surprising day

I hadn't been to the gay interbank drinks since last November when I went with my friend P. In December I was away on holiday with boyfriend number 2, and then I had other commitments which prevented me from attending in January, so I was looking forward to going along in February :-). But in early February, a colleague asks me to go an a business trip with him.

"GB, I need to visit a client in Geneva, and it would be good if you could join me because I know they'd like to hear your views on their situation :-)."

As soon as he tells me the date I know that it's the interbank drinks in the evening, so I make an alternative suggestion.

"OK, perhaps we should have a conference call with them then, wouldn't it be better to discuss this now rather than later in the month?"

"But they're a very important client, and meetings always go better face to face. And you'll get a good lunch out of it!"

Ahhh well, business has to come first of course. Anyway, since it's just going to be a day trip, I may get back in time to go to the interbank drinks after all.

The day itself turns out to be quite amusing, beginning as soon as I leave my house. A Swedish woman is trying to persuade my pre-booked taxi to take her to Heathrow.

"Sorry, I thought you were MY taxi," I hear her saying as I'm walking up to the cab, "I don't know where my taxi is. If I wait any longer I'll miss my plane."

Since my Geneva flight is flying from Heathrow anyway, I agree to let her share my cab. But as we're approaching Heathrow, I use my PDA's Internet connection to check which terminal her flight is leaving from.

"Err, I think you've got a problem," I tell her, "According to this your flight leaves from London City Airport, not Heathrow!"

London City Airport is East London, Heathrow is West London, so she's stuffed! And she's not able to share the cab fare with me either, because she's got no cash, only a credit card, and this particular cab only takes cash. I've got my own flight to catch of course, so I give the cabbie a bit extra to take her to the Heathrow terminal that's most likely to help her, and say goodbye. What a disaster area she was, no taxi, no cash, and wrong airport anyway!

Once in Switzerland, I need to take a short train journey and a short cab ride to reach the client. But on the train, an old woman starts asking my advice about how to get to the place where she's agreed to meet her son.

"Should I take a taxi, or walk?" she asks. "I'm worried about the one-way roads you see. It might be quicker to walk if the taxi is going to have to go a long way round to get there."

I offer her the map that I'd printed out from multimap.com the previous day, but she declines and continues chatting. She seems mostly harmless, but then I had to get a cab.

The cabbie turns out to be a North African guy who speaks perfect English. He's quite chatty, but as he talks to me, I can't help thinking that he may be a bit unbalanced.

"I like to joke with people," he tells me as we're driving along, "but some people have a bad attitude!"

"For example," he continues, "yesterday there was this fat guy, very fat in fact, so I told him that he looked like a woman who still hadn't had her baby seven weeks after the usual 9 months. I was just joking with him of course, but he wanted to hit me!"

Fancy that mate, I can't imagine why! I decide to give the cabbie a big tip, 'keep him happy' I think to myself, I don't want any trouble.

The lunch and meeting go well, and on my return journey no other members of The General Public come forward to amuse me. The flight lands on time, my pre-booked taxi shows up on time as well, and with no bizarre Swedish women to divert me I decide that there's time to pop in to the interbank drinks after all.

But at the interbank drinks, there's one more surprise in store for me. I'm chatting to cuteCTguy when I spot someone I know on the other side of the room.

"Hey, do you know that guy over there?" I ask him.

"Errr, yes a bit, not very well though, why?"

"Just tell me this, is he gay or straight?"

"I always assumed he was gay," says cuteCTguy, "and this is the gay interbank drinks you know GB!"

Indeed it is. So I guess that clinches it. Even long time readers of this blog will probably have forgotten the mystery of the sexuality of a guy in the gym called S, but as soon as I saw him there at the interbank drinks that was all I could think of. It's nice to tie up loose ends :-)!