encounter at the Shell station

[substitute]

When I was gassing up the car in Huntington Beach last week, another car pulled in and parked, and the driver got out and approached me.

He was in his sixties, South Asian, and wearing one of those embroidered tunic-like garments that comes down to the knees. He was either a foreigner or someone who was practicing a more traditional Indian life here in California.

He greeted me with "Hello. Do you know, could you tell me, where is New Britain?"

For a moment I froze. What the hell? Was he somehow trying to find some new Raj of Anglo-Indians, an enclave of 1908 here in suburbia? Or was he asking me a trick geographical question about a remote island? Seconds passed.

He looked at me quizzically and smiled. "It is a street."

Oh! I had no idea where New Britain street was in HB. I pointed him to the clerk.

Now I have this image in my head of a little Simla hidden somewhere between the beach and the freeweay.

Comments

[fattmike.livejournal.com]

Good thing he didn't ask me. My first try would have been the 215 to the 15 to the 80 for about 2700 miles, then the 81 to the 84 and follow the signs.

Of course, his first mistake, being a man and all, would have been asking for directions in the first place ;)

[namja.livejournal.com]

the first part of this had me sweating to think of what could possibly be called new britain.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

The town in CT, and this part of New Guinea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Britain

Or, apparently, some suburban street. The New Guinea part's been having earthquakes lately so I keep seeing it in my quake updates.

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

On last week's "Arrested Development" they paid a visit to a section of Orange County called "little Britain" which was exactly what it sounds like, a tiny British village somewhere in Newport where people drive on the wrong side of the road and say "Guvnah" a lot. Maybe he saw the show and decided to check it out?

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Was that the Orange County here or the one in NY? I think it's the one in NY.

We do have a little Germany here: http://www.oldworld.ws/

It's.. odd.