 Claudine in London
I'm going to impart a little wisdom on ya here: Don't carry batteries and coins in the same pocket of your pants. Because when everything in your pocket jiggles and wiggles itself into the perfect alignment, you will burn the shit out of your leg, your pants, and anything else that might be in your pocket. And your batteries will be dead.
I learned this the hard way. A number of factors lead to this discovery. When Claudine and I went to London this year, I was all excited to use the digital camera. But I wasn't too sure about how long the batteries would last, so I always carried at least one extra pair of rechargeable batteries. These usually ended up in my right front pants pocket. A second factor in this is my dislike for carrying things (meaning extra bags and things) when I travel. I like to be able to stuff everything into pockets on my person. The third contributing factor was my usual fascination with an unfamiliar currency. I was kind of collecting a couple of each coin denomination. These, also, would wind up in my right front pants pocket.
Claudine and I were riding along on the top of an open air, double decker bus when I suddenly got a sharp burning sensation in my right thigh. Imagine taking the hot cigarette lighter from your car and jabbing that into your thigh. I immediately made an unintelligible wail and went rigid, in that position you get into when you need to reach into your pocket while still seated. At this point, Claudine thinks I'm having a stroke. (As I was typing this, I originally misspelled stroke to be "stork". I suppose that my noises and flailing would have been about the same had I actually been having a stork. And I mean "having" in terms of "giving birth to", not "having" as in "having sex with". Although, again, the noises and movements might have been the same.) I reached my hand into this inferno that found its way into my pants and pulled out everything that I can get my fingers around. So I burned my fingers on an incredibly hot 1 pound coin. I pulled the coin out to show Claudine as if I were performing some incredible magic trick. She still had no idea what was the matter, except that apparently, a 1 pound coin has caused me to have a stroke (or a stork).
I started to piece together what happened. Metal coins + charged battery = ouch. The coins must have shifted around the battery in such a way that a circuit was completed. In my pants. And the large, 1 pound coin was flat against my thigh at the time this magic configuration took place. Claudine found much humor in the entire situation. I toyed with the idea of jabbing her in the leg with a hot cigarette lighter but we didn't have a rental car at the time. And besides, she was pregnant. Later at the hotel I took my pants off. On the underside of the pocket, there was perfect dark circle against the white of the fabric. Looking at my leg, there was a perfect red circle against the pasty white of my skin.
So there you have it. My travel tip is: Don't carry batteries and coins together. Although I'm sure if you asked Claudine, her tip would be: Don't let an idiot carry your batteries.
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