When your phone rings in the middle of the night in Paris, shoot yourself. Whatever is on the other end of that phone will be worse. One gunshot wound and ta-da! You don't have to deal with it.

Not that I knew this when my hotel phone rang in the middle of the night in Paris. Nope. I answered it. In English. I was tired. And my French? It's not so hot.

English was fine it turned out because my American friend was on the other line. "The Chunnel is on fire. Do you know the Chunnel is on fire?"

I had Eurostar tickets leaving in a few hours. The Eurostar being the train that travels through the Chunnel between Paris and London - the Chunnel, which was now the world's largest smoldering pipe bomb. In London, I had more trains waiting for me. I had hotel reservations up and down England and Scotland. Non-refundable tickets. Pre-paid hotel reservations. Do you know what the exchange rate is, for the love of God? My husband flipped on the Parisian version of CNN. It was the first time either of us had touched a T.V. in days. Who watches T.V. in Paris? We did. We watched thousands of our vacation dollars burning under the English Channel.

We were in a tiny hotel in the Marais very near Notre Dame. It was quaint and beautiful and perfect and entirely without internet access. No internet cafes. Nothing open. I hung up with my friend and started making some very expensive international calls.

You know you're in the shit when it's the middle of the night, you're a grown woman and you're calling your mother. Your mother who is awake and at work in an office, an office with internet access. It is, after all, the day before back in Missouri.

"Oh my God, what's wrong?" She's a mother. She's hardwired to be vaguely hysterical at the best of times, and she, too, knows perfectly well you've got to be in the shit if you're calling from Paris. (She'd say calling period because she's your mother and will be the first to tell you that you never call.)

"Need plane tickets. Need plane tickets now."

The T.V. is still yammering. Thousands of travelers trapped in Paris. Months to sort it out. Trains not running. Customer service overwhelmed. Ticket holders urged not to show up at the station. Shit.

Mother, God bless her, switches into Executive Secretary Mode. Handful of seats left. Not together. We don't care. Flying through Belfast. Leaving from Charles de Gaulle. Arriving in Heathrow. Perfect. Yes. Get me to London whatever it costs. It won't be as much as what I'd loose by missing the rest of the trip. Although it sure costs plenty.

She books the tickets. The T.V. keeps yammering. It goes from bad to worse. We turn it off. No one was hurt. We've got a way out. We try to sleep. We're relieved and maybe even giddy, high on our quick thinking and decisive action. Good in an emergency - that's us.

Until we land in Belfast, that is. That customs official will rue the day. He will rue it.

To be continued...