The
story of Malcolm the kilted tour guide...
A tour of Edinburgh --- We all got off the train and assembled on the
platform near Chris (the schools representative for the trip) for a head
count. Just then a beefy, curly long hair, Mell Gibson looking Scot in a kilt
went by looking around like he was looking for someone... I spoke up and said
“girls look our first kilt"! All eyes turned toward him as he walked away
from us. I turned to ask Chris "what's next" he motioned towards
someone who had walked up behind me. "Hello my name is Malcolm and I'm
going to be your tour guide".... Duh! There standing 3 feet from me was
the kilted cutie.... As he spoke to the group about what was next... "and
I'll be escorting you..." I stopped listening, bent my head toward
Chris and asked "are you responsible for hiring Malcolm the tour guide?"
"Yes" he answered, uncertainly.
"Good Job" I enthusiastically
said, smiling and nodding.
Right away, I decided I liked his muscular calves and lovely accent...
So after checking his ring finger for marital status I decided to be especially
nice to him and smile, ask questions and see if I could get to know him. For
the next two days he lead us around, taking us to castle, hiking trails that
lead to a spectacular view over the city and down winding "close" to
hear stories of famous and infamous people from Edinburgh. I was attentive. At
the end of day two he announced he would be at a certain pub that specialized
in scotch that evening if anyone wanted to join him... I was ready... However
during these two days I had also befriended two girls, it was more important to be with
them than for me to go drink in a pub, so the other group of "popular girls" went
off to the pub and we went to the pub at the hostile we were staying in...
Funny thing it was too! We ordered drinks and sat at the bar, in a few minutes I
had scanned the room and discovered that it was full of gay men... Ok, we just
sat talking and then at about 11:30 went up to sleep. The other girls came in
about 12:30 but apparently Malcolm didn't show and they went to a couple of
other places ... Hummm....?
Early the next morning we met Malcolm at the Parliament Building for a
tour of the floor and offices. He was there and escorted us all through the
security and retrieved the security badges on lanyards, we all had to wear
around our necks while in the building. He was holding them in such a way that
as he tried to pull them apart to distribute they tangled terribly ... I could
see right away that if they were pulled out from the bottom they would not
tangle so I took them away from him and said "here this is how to do
that", he smiled at me and said " how did you figure that out?"
quickly and with a lilt in my voice I said, "it's because I have a
brain"..., and I smiled everyone sort of snickered... And suddenly he
looked at me with a different unreadable look. The rest of the day he was right
at my side but didn't talk to me, he caught up to me as we walked, he sat by me
when we sat down and he continually looked at me ... I kept smiling at him,
whenever I looked at him. That evening he escorted our whole group to the
train, all aboard safely except for one of the girls who had to find a restroom
before she got aboard. Because he would be responsible if she missed the train,
Malcolm kept watch standing on the platform. I was at my window seat in the
train car, right across from where he was standing, we were only about 15 feet
apart... me in the train, at the window looking out at him, him on the platform
keeping an eye out for the late girl. She finally arrived with just a minute to
spare, but Malcolm kept standing there looking me... and still there was an
unreadable look on his face. I kept eye contact. Just as I felt the first tug of the train’s
movement out of the station I gave him an exaggerated wink... his chin hit the
floor. I turned and sat down. That was a great visit to Edinburgh.
Posts
