©2004 UrbisMedia
I can’t help but think of Steve Lumb every time I hear or read the word “Euro”. Steve had the worst case of FECS (Foreign Exchange Conversion Stress) I ever encountered in over two decades of escorting tour groups abroad. All those zeros on Italian price stickers, those strange monetary symbols for pounds and yen, the difference between’ foreign exchange certificate’s and renminbi, threw him into a panic. Desperately, apologetically, he would blurt out, “how much is that in DOLLARS?” He couldn’t understand that, since dollars are almost as universally acceptable as Marlboros, why other countries just don’t get rid of their odd-sized notes, their coins that are either the size of tiny buttons or as large as manhole covers, and adopt our system.
The “euro” saved Steve from having a nervous breakdown every time he had to reach for his wallet in Europe.
And whenever I think of Steve my mind ‘s eye returns to a men’s room in the Cologne train station, and I imagine a bronze plaque affixed to the wall above one of the urinals. It gleams from the polish the matronly attendant applies daily.
The plaque reads: THE STEVE LUMB MEMORIAL URINAL
Well, OK, there should be such a plaque. Steve (not his real name to protect his reputation) deserves a plaque, and if that woman attendant had known his name I’m sure she would have honored Steve for making her feel that she’d won the lottery. Maybe she just put one up to the unknown urinator .
That fateful day I was just three or four urinals down the wall from Steve, but the events leading up to Steve’s hallowed place in restroom history began weeks earlier, at the beginning of our tour, in Italy. It was in the pre-euro days.
The tour I was leading would visit a half-dozen countries. At first Steve listened intently to my little lectures on foreign exchange: “Remember, pounds are worth more than dollars; the other countries’ money will be worth less; try to change money at banks, and only what you need for a couple days; try to end up with scrip, which is easier to change for the next country’s currency; etc.” But then Steve’s eyes glazed over. Like others who share his problem he
was intelligent and competent in other things, but foreign exchange was voodoo economics. Not long thereafter his FECS began to show itself.
In Venice several of us were ante-ing up for a group lunch. It was an inexpensive restaurant, but the mound of lire we tossed on the table looked like most of the banknotes in Italy. I had kept track of everybody’s share and told Steve he owed 5000 lire. As we got up to leave I spied the hue of a 50,000 lire note sticking out from the pile—more than the cost of the meal and a tip for the entire group. I returned it to Steve, but it was only a few hours later that he
was fortunate to get an honest ticket seller when he paid the same note for a 5,000 lirevaporetto ticket and had to be called back to get his change.
I’m not sure just how Steve fared as we transitioned from Swiss francs, to French francs, and to Belgian francs over the next couple of weeks. The different exchange rates and currency colors were probably taking a toll on his mind as well as his bank account. I couldn’t help but notice however that he had so much currency leftover money from each place he’d been that he would just pull out the lot and trust the waiter or cabby to take just what he owed in whatever currency he chose.
Near the end of the tour we had a couple of free days at Brussels, and Steve and a few others prevailed on me to lead a little day trip to Cologne, just to see the Cathedral and a couple of museums, have lunch and dinner, and catch a late train back to Brussels. When we arrived at the Cologne Bahnhof I suggested we buy some deutschmarks for admissions and our meals and return ticket. Something must have distracted me from my intention to keep an eye on Steve at the Bureau de Change.
We marveled at the cathedral, force-marched through several museums, wolfing down a lunch in between. At dusk we rewarded ourselves with a huge German meal and enough lager to fuel a return to Brussels on foot. Which is what we would have had to do had I not checked the train timetable in my pocket. We had only minutes to catch the last train back.
In a panic I paid the bill for all of us and said we would settle up on the train. We rushed to the station with only minutes to spare, got our tickets and were heading to the platform when Steve said he needed to relive himself of some of that lager. Not wanting to risk his missing the train I went with him to the rest room. I was nervous; German trains run on time, and there was less than a minute to get to the platform.
I told Steve to hurry, and I would go out and tell the others we were coming and to give us a yell if the conductor blew the all-aboard whistle. On the way out of the restroom I tossed a few fennig in the little dish on the table beside the matronly restroom attendant who threw me a guilt glance from over her magazine. Behind me I heard her perfunctory “ danke .”
On the platform I urged Steve on like a horse I had a big bet on as he raced up the stairs and jumped aboard just ahead of the train’s lurch precisely on the second it was scheduled to depart. We plopped into the compartment with the others, self-satisfied that we had drained as much as possible from one day in Cologne, right up to the last second.
Once we caught our breath we began to settle up for the dinner. I told each what they owed and took the deutschmarks that I had told everyone to keep in reserve for the dinner. But when I got to Steve he said he was clean out of deutschmarks . That made me curious.
“How much U.S. money did you change this morning?” I asked.
“A couple hundred bucks,” he said.
“A couple hundred bucks!?” I exclaimed. “I said ‘get a couple hundred deutschmarks ‘; that’s about forty bucks at the current rate. You got it backwards. You must have plenty left over,” I replied, fearing the worst.
“I don’t, I put all I had left in that dish in the men’s room. I thought I was going to miss the train and that lady looked like she wouldn’t let me out unless I paid . . .”
“Paper money?” I interrupted, wincing.
“Uh huh.”
I took out some large denomination Deutschmark notes. “Any like these?” I asked, fanning them out like I was playing “pick a card.”
“A few,” he said in a tone of resignation.
One of the other guys snickered: “Hey Steve, I bet that lady in the men’s room is already putting up a plaque over the urinal you just purchased. I can just see the shiny brass now: The Steve Lumb Memorial . . . .”.
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©2004, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 12.31.2004)