Checkpoint Charlie
“After my interminable session with insulting civil servants and the infuriating immigration apparatus I was dour and irritable and, overriding everything else, hungry.
As we drove in I had a look at the Embassy and saw the smudges above the top-story windows where the fire had licked out and charred the stonework. I made a face.
I introduced myself at the desk and there was a flurrying of phoning and bootlicking. I was directed to the third floor and managed to persuade one of the secretaries t...o send down for a portable lunch. Predictably I was kept waiting in Dennis Sneden’s outer office and I ate the sandwiches there, after which — 20 minutes having passed — I stood up on the pretext of dropping the lunch debris in the blonde receptionist’s wastebasket. When she looked up, startled, I said, “Tell him he’s kept me cooling my heels long enough.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know you all resent my coming. But making me sore won’t help any of us. Punch up the intercom and tell him I’m coming in.”MoreLess
As we drove in I had a look at the Embassy and saw the smudges above the top-story windows where the fire had licked out and charred the stonework. I made a face.
I introduced myself at the desk and there was a flurrying of phoning and bootlicking. I was directed to the third floor and managed to persuade one of the secretaries t...o send down for a portable lunch. Predictably I was kept waiting in Dennis Sneden’s outer office and I ate the sandwiches there, after which — 20 minutes having passed — I stood up on the pretext of dropping the lunch debris in the blonde receptionist’s wastebasket. When she looked up, startled, I said, “Tell him he’s kept me cooling my heels long enough.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know you all resent my coming. But making me sore won’t help any of us. Punch up the intercom and tell him I’m coming in.”MoreLess
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