Texas Attempted: The last trials

Our last day in the hotel. I start it feeling sad - sad to leave this place. I always get nostalgic when I leave hotel rooms; yes, you heard me, nostalgic. It's amazing how quickly you feel at home in a place; how you learn the nooks and crannies and imagine the stories that each object has to tell.

I gaze at the ceiling fan above my bed - a well-fed and slightly less buff Martin Sheen - and I wonder at all the people who have turned on that fan. Old men staving off their next heart attack; little bastard kids playing with the switches; young lovers opting for a post-fornication cooldown.

I then remember that I am lying here gazing at the ceiling fan precisely because I am trying to get rid of my morning glory. I wouldn't want to get out of bed and slap my brother in the face with my todger - he's not receptive to those kind of things. And so I stop myself thinking about all the rampant sex undertaken beneath this fan and then hobble to the shower. And there, Texas deals me a savage blow.

Whilst standing in the power-shower, my hand slips on the temperature control and I am doused in scalding water. My instincts kick in, as they did for the first cavemen who braved the Texan power-showers. I stagger back into the corner of the cubicle, besieged by the flesh-burning streams. I try to reach my hand back to the taps, but I am forced away once more. I push against the glass on my left, hoping there is another way out; but there is not. I am trapped by the boiling spray.

It is a Saw moment. Do I pay for the crimes of my life and accept a slow death in the power-shower? Or do I learn courage, put my sinful osmotic-wanking behind me, and lunge through the fiery gauntlet?

Later on, my family drags my charred body down to the restaurant, where we have breakfast. The restaurant's by the Tower lounge, but there's no sign of Don. He must be out exfoliating the chickens. We spend breakfast antagonising the waitress by not letting her help us. She stands nervously to one side, shifting from foot to foot as we get up to pour our own juice and toast our own bagels. Her every altruistic manoeuvre is frustrated by English humility and sarcastic refusals.

But there is hope. I take a mouthful of my coffee and suddenly she is by my side, brandishing a coffee jug like a set of prayer-beads.

'Would you like some more?' she asks, her voice trembling like a hopeful child. I allow her to add another inch to my beverage and consider spilling my scrambled eggs, just to be generous. I'd imagine them gossiping behind the curtains, about the handsome young man on Table 12 with poor motor coordination.

The waitress also refills my Dad's coffee and walks off, leaving behind confusion of Shakespearean proportion as my Dad returns to the table.

'I thought I drunk that,' he says.
'You did,' I reply.
'Have I got yours, Ross?' he asks, staring over at my brother, who continues buttering his toast like Norman Bates.
'No, that's yours,' I sigh.
'I could of swore I drunk it.'
'She refilled it.'
'She's what?'
'She refilled it!'
'Why are you snapping at us again?'

We return to the hotel room and pack the last of our stuff. I read the instructions on the jelly beans and make my final offensive. Strawberry flavour! Fuck you, jelly beans, I win!

We load our stuff into the car and then find that the sat-nav has passed away during the night. I suspect foul play, but my father protests ignorance as usual. We therefore resort, like Barbarians, to reading road signs, and soon we are reunited with my uncle. He takes us for cinnamon coffee and clothes shopping, just for a change.

My mouse-like mother leads us into a Jones New York Woman's store, where we are confronted by the love-child of Oprah Winfrey and Biggy Smalls.

'This is the plus-size store!' she declares, glaring at my diminutive mother.
'So will any of this stuff fit me?' I ask, smiling from the lingerie section. But she is the icewoman... cold... unconquerable.

After finding the standard store and having a nice chat with the Asian women, we return to the car. The sat-nav is back from the grave and speaking in Korean.

'She sounds nicer.' remarks my father.

Some veterans in the car park are getting edgy, so I change it back to English.

The plan was good in theory: a large breakfast and then hold out till dinner. But the coffee has made me ravenous, and it's only 3.15. Not good. I am hungry, hot, sexually frustrated and vexed by a wonky sat-nav. The next three hours will be long ones.

I find something to distract me: a news report about the ongoing American writer's strike. Episode 7 of 24 has had to be postponed. It looks like Jack Bauer has finally met his match. I tremble at the prospect of my future power. Denis Hopper's got nothing on me.

Finally, we stop at my uncle's for drinks, where I am handed a mother-fucker-class scotch. We then proceed to pick up my Aunt, who is the president of Haggar (the shop, not the country). And on the way out I read a sign on a schoolbus saying "Children may be exciting". I stare transfixed, but then realise the scotch is making me see imaginary "C"s. It's actually a very conscientious safety sign and not a sociological statement. I always make that mistake.

After collecting my Aunt we go to a gourmet Mexican restaurant. Surely an oxymoron, but I am proved wrong. We are pelted with nachos and a given a variety of dips, whilst a Mexican woman behind us sets fire to some cheese. My mother orders three margaritas, as I eat lobster in a cocktail glass. This is a strange place...

The main courses are all covered in a brown chocolate-like goup. It's called Mole Sauce.

'What's in it?' I ask the waitress.
'Mole,' she responds. I stare at her arse and frown.

Mole Sauce is disgusting. I guess those little Mexican critters didn't get a massage before their sombrero-covered holes were dynamited.

I drive back to my uncle's place in his Jaguar. We move through a ghost-town, wide open boulevards where nothing moves but the slow-rustling trees and the manic sprinklers.

'Where are all the chavs?' I ask, looking for the hordes of leering teenagers that populate the street corners of the world.

'The cops don't stand for that kinda shit,' replies my uncle.

How perfect. How simplistic. If only we could try that in England - not standing for shit. We would be accused of ideology, for sure. They would label us fascists and intransigents. But how much we could do away with: the sense that we are disturbing shopkeepers; the sense that we should not complain; the sense of having a place, a station with unspoken rules. How much I could achieve, if only I didn't stand for shit.