A line of dead highwaymen

The driver who picked me up from Seattle Tacoma airport lost no time in telling me of his Irish roots. His grandfather allegedly came from a long line of highwaymen, most of whom had been shot for robbery. I didn't think it would be polite to point out that his errant forefathers would have been far more likely to be hanged or transported, even if there was a grain of truth in the story, but it was obvious that truth was not the objective. I did ask him if he always told people who were trapped in the back of his car that all his ancestors were robbers. "I never thought of it that way," he chuckled.

He then proceeded to tell me that the country was going to hell in a handcart due to the efforts of the gun control lobby. "There were two cities in the US," he told me with an air of authority. "In one they banned private gun ownership, and in the other they made it mandatory for every household to own a gun. And you know what?" I could not imagine what was coming. "In the first city the crime rate soared, and in the second it dropped almost to nothing."

"Is that so?" I asked. "Which city was it that made handguns mandatory?"

"Well, I may have exaggerated a little," he muttered. "They made it much easier to get handguns, maybe. I think it was in Georgia," For all I know he might be right, but this account did not smack any more of scientific rigour than his story of an unbroken line of dead highwaymen.

I considered strolling out to get a feel for Seattle at night, but once I had tested the hotel bed for comfort I was unable to get off it again, and I was looking at another early start in the morning. I ordered the usual three-breakfasts-in-one for the crack of dawn (The knack of leaving out items from a breakfast order would not appear in my skill set, if I had a CV), and collapsed into coma.