Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Not half!'
'Did you ever see him eat a live cat?'
'No, but I saw him pull the tongue out of a horse once.'
It went on like this all the way to Geneva. These guys were serious psychopaths, in urgent need of a
clinic. I kept expecting one of them to look in at me and say, 'I'm bored. Let's hang this asshole upside-
down out the window and see how many times we can hit his head on the sleepers.' Eventually, I peeked
out. They were both about four feet two inches tall and couldn't have beaten up a midget in a blindfold. I
followed them off the train at Geneva and out of the station, chattering excitedly as they went about people
having their heads stuck in a waffle iron or their tongues nailed to the carpet.
I watched them go, then turned and, with an instinct that seldom fails to let me down, checked into the
dreariest and unfriendliest hotel in its class in Geneva, the aptly named Terminus.
Finding nothing to detain me there, I went straight to the Union Bank of Switzerland offices on the Rue
du Rh￴ne to claim my refund on my Visa traveller's cheques. I was directed to a small room in the
basement, where international transactions were dealt with. I had assumed that things would be painlessly
efficient here, but I hadn't allowed for the fact that the Swiss national motto is 'Trust No One'. It took most of
the afternoon.
First, I had to stand in a long queue, full of veiled women and men in nightshirts, all involved in
complicated transfers of funds from one Arab sandpit to another, requiring the production of parchment
documents, the careful counting of huge stacks of brightly coloured money and occasional breaks to pray to
Allah and slaughter a goat. All of this was presided over by a blonde woman who clearly hated her job and
every living thing on the planet. It took an hour for me just to reach the window, where I was required to do no
more than establish my identity and reveal, in a low voice and with significant sidelong glances, the secret
reclaim number I had been given over the phone in Florence. This done, the woman told me to take a seat.
'Oh, thanks, but I'd never get it in my suitcase,' I said with my best Iowa smile. 'Can't I just have my
cheques?'
'You must take a seat and wait. Next.'
I sat for three-quarters of an hour before I was summoned to the window and handed a claim form
packed with questions and sent back to my seat to fill them in. It was an irritating document. It required me
not only to explain in detail how I had been so reckless as to have lost the traveller's cheques with which
Visa had trustingly endowed me, and to give all manner of trifling detail including the number of the police
report and the address of the police station at which the report was made, but also contained long sections
of irrelevant questions concerning things like my height, weight and complexion. 'What the fuck does my
complexion have to do with traveller's cheques?' I said, a trifle wildly, causing a pleasant-looking matron
sitting next to me to put some space between us. Finally it instructed me to give two financial references
and one personal reference.
I couldn't believe it. By what mad logic should I have to give references to reclaim something that was
mine? 'American Express doesn't ask for anything like this,' I said to the matronly lady, who looked at me
and shifted her butt another two inches towards safety. I lied on all the answers. I said I was four feet two
inches tall, weighed 400 pounds, was born in Abyssinia and busted broncos for a living. I put 'amber' for
complexion and Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky for my financial references. For a personal reference, I
gave myself, of course. Who better? I was spluttering with indignation when I rejoined the queue, which had
now grown to include a delegation of Rwandan diamond merchants and two guys with camels.
'Why do I have to answer all these stupid questions?' I demanded as I turned in my claim form. 'This is
the most stupid thing I've ever seen. It's really ... stupid .' I get eloquent like that when I'm angry. The woman
pointed out that it was nothing to do with her, that she was just following instructions. 'That's what Himmler
said!' I cried, both feet leaving the ground at once. Then I realized it was pointless, that she would only make
me take a seat again and wait there until Michaelmas if I didn't act calm and Swiss about it all, so I
accepted my replacement traveller's cheques with nothing stronger than sulky indignation.
But from now on it's American Express traveller's cheques for me, boy, and if the company wishes to
acknowledge this endorsement with a set of luggage or a skiing holiday in the Rockies, then let the record
show that I am ready to accept it.
 
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