Stonehenge Visit and Forrest Gump Moments

The Special Yank at the Back of the Bus

• On the tour bus heading to Wiltshire, I was chatting with the tour bus driver, enthusiastically explaining that my tech consulting company was named Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc..
• The driver responded with typical British skepticism: "Oh, all you yanks think you're special."
• At lunch, I sat down at a communal table. A tourist sitting directly across from me recognized me and gasped—she was carrying my Perl books!
• She immediately went up to the driver and vouched for my legendary status as a famous tech author.
• For the remainder of the tour, the driver completely changed his tune, teasingly calling out over the microphone: "And for the special yank at the back of the bus..."

Stonehenge in a Nutshell

• While browsing the gift shop at the visitor center, I spotted a poster titled "Stonehenge in a Nutshell".
• Since my bestselling books were published under the famous O'Reilly "In a Nutshell" series (such as Perl in a Nutshell), this double-pun was irresistible, and I purchased it.
• I was wearing my custom-embroidered Stonehenge Consulting Services company merchandise hat and shirt, featuring my custom Stonehenge Logo.
• As I paid, I proudly gestured to my custom company logo.
• The cashier, in perfect, dry Received Pronunciation (RP / Queen's English), looked at me, paused, and remarked:

  "Oh, that's why you have your own hat then."

  Treating it as if it is the most natural thing in the world for an American tourist to walk around wearing custom-manufactured merchandise of a 5,000-year-old British heritage monument!