Incoherent Rambling About the Importance of Tea and Trains

I'm drinking large quantities of tea this week. I'm trying to cut back on my coffee because, well, I'm going to have to have my first ulcer sponsored by Folger's. But it's not like I'm cutting back on caffeine, because that is just crazy talk. So I've been dipping into my stores of Earl Grey tea.


I picked up the tea habit when I lived in England. Any country which stops for an afternoon snack is my kind of place. Even better than the tea is the beer. My health club in England had a pub inside. So I could walk on the treadmill and then grab a pint to cool down. Great country.

The great thing about tea is that is both loaded with caffeine, but it is also used to calm the nerves. Which leads me to my misadventures on the London Underground. Our train was puling into Paddington Station, and apparently our conductor was scared by a bear in his rain slicker or something because he failed to hit the brakes. Normally, this would not be much of a problem, as I would have just missed my stopped. But Paddington is a terminus stop for the particular Brit Rail train I was on. So there weren't any tracks to continue on and our train was instead stopped by those barrier things which are, quite frankly, ill-equipped to stop a train.

So our train smashed into the barriers, lifting the train off of the track. We then came to a full and complete stop. And in typical understated British fashion, the Brit Rail officials told us to "mind the gap". Which was hard not to mind, since our particular car was a good five feet from the platform. That's a little more than a gap.

Long(er) stroy short, we're in the hospital, enjoying the very best that socialized medicine has to offer* when my girlfriend decides to finally realize she was in a train derailment and that now would be a good time to wig out. If this were to happen in an American hospital, they would have pumped her full of drugs. Not the Brits. They brought tea.

And not just tea in a styrofoam cup. We're talking the whole kit and caboodle. They brought the pot, two cups, a bowl of sugar, a little thing of milk, everything. All of it was actual china and they gave us real silverware. I even got a scone out of the deal. And it worked. She calmed down right away and we had a delightful cup of tea in the hospital.

The moral here is that you shouldn't screw with the Brits and their tea. Tea is magic.

*Note From Management - While I don't want to sound like a commie, I have to admit all of my experiences with socialized medicine (of the British vintage) was truly top notch. I've been in all sorts of hospitals form all sorts of reasons, and this was one of the most pleasant experiences I have ever had in one. OK, so they cured a mild case of shock with a pot of tea, but the point is that it worked. Equally surprising is that the best dentist I ever had was the one I had in England. In fact, he's the one who fixed my tooth on a day's notice when it got knocked out in the Louvre (well, only the top half of my tooth). Because I look at art pretty damn aggressively. And I am so prone to injury that I can actually need medical attention after looking at the Venus de Milo.

All of it completely paid for by British tax dollars. So my medical care was free to me. I fully endorse socialized health benefits that someone else pays for.