Summerside, Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.)

Andreas Paepcke
Jul 22, 2017 · 6 min read

Interesting to get on a ferry with a motorcycle. Mildly intimidating,
with long lines of sedans, trucks, buses, and RVs crammed in all
around, several lanes wide, and multiple levels high. This time I was
the head of one lane, meaning I had to be ready to roll as soon as the
complex ramp mechanism clanged into place.

Just one of the vehicles

Infantilization Continues

Before I begin, let me have a moment with my daughter Steffi. Just talk amongst yourselves.

Steffi, I’m so sorry to put you through this story. Cringy, I know; certainly for a daughter. Though (spoiler alert), all four of us walked away proud, I was not arrested, and they don’t have my contact
information.

OK all, then. Right off the ferry I stop by the visitors center. An
attendant attends to me attentively, with great efficiency and
knowledge. It took me a while to make her smile, but in the end she
even laughed. We were on a dangerous tipping point once, but it really
wasn’t my fault. She kept circling hamlets as cute fishing villages,
and then we got to Charlottetown. I inquired, more rhetorically
really, whether this was a cute little town. Her voice took on a
slightly metallic quality when she corrected me:

“Well, it *is* the capital of our province. It has museums, performing
arts, a university, …”

My clearly contrite demeanor mollified her. Mea culpa.

Once I was loaded with brochures and a tourist map full of magic
markered routes and attractions I stepped away to call the Quality Inn
for a reservation. (Don’t get me started about drawing on maps… But
as long as someone else does it…).

The following may sound like a pedantic detail, but it has bearing on
what follows. To hear the Quality Inn representative I had to grind
the iPhone into my cheek. The screen is now well sunscreened at 35 SPF.

The reservation accomplished, I stepped into the mens room where I
discovered just how convenient the curtain ring on my central pants
zipper really is. Kind of like the ramped sidewalks were made for
disabled people, but are appreciated by all :

That easily grabbed zipper ring is handy even without motorcycle
gloves! Grab it, yank it down. Like the pull ring on a parachute. Or
the hood release of a car; the next-stop cord on a municipal bus; the
garage door gear disengagement pull handle; the safety catch on a
machine gun; the stopper chain in a bathtub. Just that feeling of
making something happen with a pull or a rip. The action satisfies.

Mind you, procedures beyond opening the zipper are better accomplished
without motorcycle gloves. But that’s not the point. The point is that
as I stepped up to the sink for the hand washing ritual I noticed that
the wall mirror beyond the sink reached below hip height. I also
noticed that my reflection displayed all three zipper rings on my
motorcycle pants to great advantage. They each stuck out a bit. Thus
posed, I tried to take a still life photograph of my midriff by means
of the mirror’s reflection: Documenting the success of my final design.

That’s when I discovered that my iPhone had entered an odd state. The
homescreen icons were large enough to not fit the screen. The camera
app no longer showed a shutter button. Instead it wanted to solarize
what was on the screen, or whatever. I couldn’t take the damn picture
of the rings in my pocket and fly zipper.

That’s when a guy entered the restroom, stepped behind me, and began
splashing away. Even if I had fixed the phone, I couldn’t very well
start taking pictures of whatever was reflected in the mirror.

Frustrated as hell I exited the wash room, cursing my phone. Which is
when I saw the three young girls behind the information counter. The
ferry crowd had dissipated, and they were lounging about, waiting for
the next shipload of clueless tourists.

Stepping up to the counter with my misbehaving phone I called out to
them, explaining that they seemed like my daughter’s generation, that
my iPhone was in a weird state, and that my daughter would no doubt be
able to fix that. Might they?

All three jumped into action. One grabbed the phone, her
silver-painted finger nail quickly finding the settings screen. Her
colleague commandeered the tourist information terminal, and googled
the problem. “We’ll fix this!” one of them promised. As fingers were
flying through my settings, and rattling queries into the browser’s
search field the third suggested rebooting the phone. The other two,
though, racing each other, would not hear of this cop-out.

Eventually, two women’s nimble fingers danced on the phone screen,
sliding, flicking, tapping. And they fixed it. As far as we could
tell, the phone had interpreted my cheek during the call to the
Quality Inn as a three-fingered gesture. Which triggered the
accessibility feature, which made the phone unusable.

The women unchecked whatever was checked, and promised that even if I
now did tap with three fingers, nothing bad would happen. I was
happy. They were rightfully proud.

But I still didn’t have that crotch shot with the three rings. Well,
three photographers were at hand. Though I underestimated the delicacy
and complexity of my request. I couldn’t just ask them to take a
photo of my crotch. So I attempted an explanation. Something like
this.

“See, I attached these rings on the zippers of my pants. And they are
really practical. So in the mens room I was trying to photograph
myself in the mirror. But then a guy came in and, you know. So I
got embarrassed.”

The situation thus clarified, I stepped behind the counter to their
side, lifted my jacket, handed my phone to one of the young women and
asked whether she might take a photo of my rings.

“Just the rings?” She asked inspecting the target area.

“Yes, just the rings please.”

And snap, I had my picture.

The final design

I did not have the nerve to adjust the rings into their most
advantageous position. I did not even look down there; just hoped that
the rings were still standing out. The ones on the side could have been improved.

The shot taken I thanked them profusely, and returned to my motorcycle.
As I pulling the key from the belfry, returning the phone
to the choir, I realized that what had just happened was a story. So I
wanted a picture of the three women. I’m always shy asking people
whether I can take their photo. But I often regret it when I chicken
out.

So back in I go, returning to the deserted tourist haven. All three
women look at me with identical expressions. They all said:

“You messed up your phone again, didn’t you?”

“No, no no!” I explained.

“It’s just, can I take a picture of the three of you?”

And here they are!

You know, I’d love to have Steffi with me on this trip. But I was
grateful she wasn’t here for this episode.

My heroes

Oh, Steffi! How long have you been in the room?…I was just saying
how nice it would be to have you on this trip…

Andreas Paepcke

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