I'd always had a fancy for driving fast in the English countryside, very fast. Up until recently, I hadn't the means to do so. Even when I did start earning my own keep I didn't have a terribly good reason to fly out to England just tear around. Up until I met Mel that is.

Love, or like at first hello

I had been penpals with Annika for a long time, and we had chatted over the phone for more than a year. I found Annika to be really sweet and funny all the time. I was also fond of her accent. To me, her very British accent was startlingly attractive. While we were burning up the trans-Atlantic phone lines, it occurred to me that perhaps she liked me back, but having just recently survive a bad breakup over long distance, I couldn't bring myself to suggest any kind of romantic relationship between us. To this day, we remain friends.

Mel was Annika's good friend. It was one of those days when the two girls were hanging out together after partying the night before, and they had plenty to talk about. I just happened to call Annika at the right time. The details of the previous nights' party was quite graphic, but none had to do with this trip so I shall omit them here.

Annika wondered mid-conversation if I would be interested in talking to Mel since she was next to her. I didn't think anything of it, how bad could it be? Mel had a tinier voice, and sounded less serious than Annika's. Do you believe in love at the first hello? I don't, and it didn't happen then. But soon thereafter, I found myself calling her every other night, and she would call me in the wee hours of the California morning. After about two months' worth of letters, a few photographs and a lot of money donated to the long distance telephone company, we had to meet. Our phone calls were so sweet it was sickening. Most guys wouldn't admit that, but since you would probably never meet me in person, I don't have to be embarrassed about being such a gooey little schmuck when I'm talking to a girl I was interested in! Especially when she felt the same about me!

So off I went to England, aboard a Virgin Atlantic 747. I departed out of San Francisco excited, hardly able to contain myself - I was going to meet both my good friend Annika, and a potentially new love interest all the way across the ocean! I kept grinning to myself on the plane. Two women sitting next to me just had to ask what the matter was with me. I bubbled out a somewhat coherent short-story version of the purpose of my trip and they looked at each other in bewilderment. They had met each other under those very circumstances and were now very much together!

I paused for a second, and congragulated them on their finding each other and wished them well. It was quite heartwarming to see that even under strange circumstances, such things do materialize.

A scant ten hours later, the lights came on and breakfast was served. We were landing at Heathrow International in about an hour. I thought to myself again, "this is going to be so cool, no one will believe me of the stories I'm going to bring back!" I was not to be disappointed.

After passing through immigration and customs, I raced down to the rental car counters. Now that I was in England, why not try to find a company that rents Alfas? After all, if I'm going to be spending a barrel of money on a rental car, might as well be something I liked. Let's see, they had Ford, Mercedes, Opel, Vauxhall, Mazda, even a Jaguar. No Alfa. I was somewhat disappointed, and settled for a Mazda MX-6 V6 that Budget had for UKP170 per week. Not cheap, I thought, but it's a nice car. I also grabbed a cellular phone at the Budget counter, just in case. That was quite a bit cheaper.

Then, as luck would have had it, as we drove by the Hertz rental car lot in the Budget shuttlebus, I saw a light blue Alfa 155 drive out the lot. And, oh hullo, what are those other Alfas doing on the Hertz parking lot? I almost screamed the driver to stop the bus right there. Instead, I let him take me to the Budget rental office where I politely told them I had changed my mind. Oh, this was going to be fucking GREAT, I thought. All I needed to do was secure one of those babies for a week and life would be super!

I strode into Hertz which was next door to Budget, and announced that "I would like to rent that Alfa Romeo in bay number 3, please." The lady at the counter smiled at me and looked up to bay number 3.
"Well, I'm afraid that particular car has been reserved."
Hm, I thought, feeling a little less lucky.
"But wait a minute, let me check," as she picked up her two-way radio and talked to someone out in the lot.
"Bob, I have a gentleman here, a walk-in, that would like to rent an Alfa Romeo, do we have any?"

Tick tick tick tick ... I could feel each second go by very, very slowly.

"uhuh ... uhuh ... hmm ... hmm? Fifty seven? Okay, thank you Bob!"

The Hertz lady then turned her attention to me and smiled, she said, "It's your lucky day, it's not silver, it's blue. Would that be okay?"

Okay? OKAY? Is she crazy or something? I'd take one in PURPLE if that were the last 155 they had on the lot!! "Sure, that will be fine," I said smiling.

So there it was, my rental Alfa 155 Twin Spark 2.0 was waiting for me in bay number 57. And boy was she beautiful. Just a little over 5,000 miles on her, and oh whoops, that was embarrassing. In my glee I forgot that the steering wheel was on the OTHER side. I had saddled my bag right onto the driver's seat of the car and walked to the passenger side where the glove compartment waited for me. I looked around sheepishly and noted a man in his fifties or sixties chuckle in my general direction. Under his breath, or cigarette smoke, he must have muttered "silly American."

Well, so what, I had the Alfa, and I was going to meet Mel. Life could not be much better than that!