There was a storm coming; I had to get back to France. Our family was vacationing in the middle of nowhere Great Britain at a junky house-turned hotel. When we arrived there was no one in sight, so we went snooping for who would normally be the man behind the desk. The decor had the tacky flair of mid-western American farm house, but all adhered to a Union Jack theme. After passing a fiesty French couple screaming in the hall despite their infant accesory, we discovered the hotel manager sprawled out sleeping in what would become my room. The storm was still coming, so I excused myself to use the phone. It had a never-ending cord. Holding the reciever up to my ear, I walked over railroad tracks to a pond-side pier where I staged my call, leaning one hip against the rotting wooden railing. A train approached in the distance, so I held up the phone cord so that it could pass underneath, casually. When I returned to my parents room, I posed a request for hors d'oeurves. Mom said, "Sure we have some eggs." What she presented to me was clearly a pile of salt rocks.