Being an American in England means that I am often subjected to light ribbing and teasing. This, because I have something obvious to tease about and the English? They have self-deprecating humor down pat. As Angus explained, everyone gets light ribbing from the friends and colleagues about something (Angus got it for the bright FCUK shirts I used to buy him. Apparently, with one yellow one I bought him, one his ex-colleagues used to scream when he walked in the room first thing in the morning wearing it, and would then put his sunglasses on asking where the cord for the blinds were. Jesus, man, it's not like he's bursting into flame or anything, it was just a yellow fucking shirt.) Being American is just an easy target.

For the most part people here aren't cruel, and this is a very good thing because if I wanted cruel, I could just ring one of my family members. I can only think of one instance where someone was outright cruel-it was just over a year ago and I have a hard time getting it out of mind sometimes, and a hard time forgiving and forgetting. Beyond that, although it gets a little wearying sometimes, I know that people aren't being openly hostile.

That doesn't mean that occasionally I don't run into someone so fucking stupid that I want to volunteer my sterilization services, lest they procreate without warning because as a former world-weary and bitter anthropologist, I sometimes believe that DARWINISM NEEDS A PUSH.

A few weeks ago we went to dinner with one of Angus' childhood chums, who is now an anchorman for one of the news stations. It's weird enough to go to dinner with someone your partner has known for almost 44 years (as a military brat, the furthest back my friends go is university, and even then we only send Christmas cards, we're not really "pour your heart out about infertility issues" kind of relationships, especially since in college we were all angry card-carrying feminists who felt the men in our life should be humbled to be allowed to spend any time in our I'll-decide-my-own-fucking-fate lives.) It's even weirder when Angus' mate asks if we can sit away from the windows, as he doesn't want to be gawked at.

This, from the man I have nicknamed "Baby Head" after seeing him on TV, as I think his head is extraordinarily large for his body.

Angus begged me not to call him that, to which I think: My people? We are kind and don't take the piss right away. I grew up using the words "Ma'am" and "Sir", of course I'm not going to fucking call him that. Not to his face, anyway.

We met up with them in the charming town of Winchester, which I have a lot of time for and like going there (mostly because it's cute and old, but also the shopping? She is great). We go to meet the man I'll call Baby Head (what? It's not like he reads this site or anything) and his girlfriend whose name I honestly can't remember so I'll call her Jojo.

'Cause that's funny.

Angus and I get there early and sit down to a bottle of wine. We are laughing and taking it easy, and he lets slip my Valentine's Day surprise-he's taking me away this coming weekend to Ireland for a long weekend. I made lots of shrieking girlie noises and big points were awarded for such a nice surprise. I'm sitting there in the amber glow of mushy love when Baby Head and Jojo show up.

Baby Head is exactly as he shows on TV, tall, strange haircut, big head, well-dressed. He looks older than Angus (I am pleased to say), but he's actually not unattractive (but not as cute as Angus, I am again pleased to say). Jojo is tiny. As in, maybe five foot two. She has shoulder-length blond hair and looks like she hasn't eaten since 1987. She's wearing one of those weird half-sweaters that knots under the boobs, the kind of thing that's supposed to show you have a rack. Now, I have a rack and a sweater like that would make it look like I was serving up my hooters a la carte, but Jojo? Crickets chirped as our glances surreptitiously tried to see what had come out of the primordial ooze that was a poor half-sweater.

We make our way into the main part of the restaurant and Angus and Baby Head sit on one side of the table, and Jojo and I sit on the other. The waitress brings a bread basket and Angus, Baby Head and I dig in, while Jojo's hand just lingers above it. Grab one! I silently plead to her. I'll get the nasal gastric tube, we can make this work! Use both hands and eat a piece, or if it's too heavy I'll feed you!

She doesn't heed my silent pleading, and her hands flutter away from the bread basket.

Angus and Baby Head are in good conversation about their hometown, their old mates, etc. Jojo turns to me.

"So are you a native of Whitney Houston?" she asks, eyeing my bread plate.

"No, I'm not. I'm actually originally from the States." I reply as I prepare the delicious bread.

"Really? You don't sound very American."

I pop a piece of the bread-the lucious, hot, olive bread-into my mouth and smile. "Well, I am." I reply after chewing and swallowing.

Jojo reaches across the table. "Baby Head! Helen's American!"

"Really?" he asks. "Whereabouts?"

I hate this part. "Guess." I smile back.

And thus commences my favorite game-when people start randomly picking states. Strangely, almost everytime I play this game someone asks if I'm from Idaho. Idaho? I mean, sure. I've driven through it and it's nice, but never have I actually met someone from Idaho. So why Idaho?

They get loads wrong until Jojo cuts in with, "Well, you can't be from the south because they sound really thick."

"I'm from the south," I reply wearily. Which I sort of am and sort of am not, but whatever.

The men go back to their man talk and Jojo's hands flit nevously around her newly-arrived appetizer, of which she eats about a third and then gives the rest to Baby Head. Jojo and I talk about the usual and I find out she's a teacher who just spent a year teaching in Spain, so from there on every other sentence that comes out of her mouth involves the word "Spain" as a plug-in to how exotic and exciting her life has been. I am informed a few times that I have "no idea" how amazing and difficult it is to live in a foreign-language speaking culture, she says. She's so right-I have no idea. After all, min tid i Sverige betyder ingenting.

She turns back me right after the main course arrives. She's ordered fettucine and I'd like to see how much of it actually gets past her lips. "I've never met a nice American," she says, stirring her fork around in her pasta plate. "They've all been absolutely dreadful."

I look at her and hear Patty Simcox in my head, poodle skirt and all: Oh I hope you're going to be at cheerleader tryouts! We'll have lots of fun and get to be lifelong friends!

"Really?" I say slowly. "That's terrible. Most of the Americans I know of and meet are very kind, genuine people."

She sniffs-seriously, she sniffs-and then almost takes a bit of a pasta noodle. "My friend Damen is married to an American woman. She came over to England ten years ago and then he married her to help her get a visa. They split years and years ago, and now he wants to get divorced but he can't find her!"

I shrug. "The courts provide for that. He just needs to get his ass in gear and file papers, after 5 years the marriage will be automatically dissolved."

"But isn't it disgusting? She used him to get a visa." She pushes a cream blob on her plate then turns to me. "Are you using Angus for a visa? Are you?"

WHAT. THE. FUCK. Why don't you just ask if I am silently funneling money out of his bank account into my own private Swiss account? Or if I have been preparing myself by slowly building up an immunity to Iocaine powder, so that I can poison both cups?

I smile tightly. "No, I'm not. I'm here on my own work visa. I'm not opposed to being here on a visa based on how I feel for him, though, and if we ever did decide to move to the States I would imagine he would feel the same."

She sniffs again. I want to buy her a Vick's nose inhaler. "Well, this woman was old. She was like mid-50's-" this is rich coming from a woman who's a stone's throw away from the big 5-0 herself-"and she was a fat ungrateful cow."

Well. Aren't we all. I look at Angus, who's enjoying his talk with his old friend Baby Head, and decide to take the high road, to silence the outraged voices in my head. I decide to not be as sarcastic and difficult as I always am-I will be kind and all-loving! I can do this! I cut off a piece of my pizza and I EAT IT, and then I turn to her. "We're not all bad. You've just had some bad exposure."

She looks at me. "All of the Americans I've met have been dreadful."

I think I can I think I can I think I can. Deep breath. "How many have you met?"

"Four," she replies.

"Hardly representative." I say with a smile. I try playing Zydeco music in my head to cheer me up.

"I knew three in Spain. They were teaching with me. They were absolutely dreadful, they didn't understand the need for a balanced curriculum."

Oh, I can't wait to hear this one. "Really? How's that?"

"Well, one of the girls was from Minnesota, and she didn't know her multiplications tables. She didn't know them at all. And she said in Minnesota they don't teach them."

I laugh. "What rubbish! Of course they teach the multiplication tables in schools in Minnesota. They teach them in all schools."

"She said they don't. And she didn't know the tables. Do you?"

Oh sure. 1x1=1. 1x2=2. Me x you=someone is going to have to emerge from this dinner situation alive and with their temper intact.

"And they didn't do P.E. in Minnesota either. She didn't do it there and she wouldn't do it in Spain."

This is whipping me. The Zydeco music is not working and my all-loving kind self is melting into a pool of inner sarcasm. "All schools have P.E. It's not so much to get us in shape as it is to scar and humiliate us for the rest of our lives, but we do have it. I think she was having you on."

Jojo shrugs. "And she couldn't spell. From what I've seen, all Americans can't spell. You're all dreadful at spelling, it was frankly embarrassing in front of the children."

Sure we can spell. C-U-N-T. See? I can spell. C-U-N-T. It's easy, now you try it.

"And she said that they don't teach sex education."

I shrug. "That might be true. It depends on the area, unfortunately. I myself am a huge proponent of teaching sex ed, and teaching all aspects of it, including contraception. But not all areas of the US are like that, so perhaps the area she was in didn't teach it."

She sighs. "I think that's terrible. The US has such a high teen birth rate."

Right. And the UK has Europe's highest teen birth rate, so where are we driving with that little suggestive tidbit, sugarplum?

Baby Head and Angus join in our conversation. "Did you have P.E. teachers teach you sex ed?" Angus laughs. "I did, it was painful."

Thank Christ for my boy, who I am going to shag the minute I get home. "I did!" I say brightly, hoping to fuck he'll stay in the conversation. "I was taught by a P.E. teacher, too, it was terribly awkward!"

Jojo pushes her dinner plate to Baby Head, who will be the recipient of a largely full and artfully arranged bowl of fettucine, as handed off by the Famine Girl. "I too had a P.E. teacher. They seperated the girls from the boys, and I remember being so shocked when they showed a picture of the penis, and of the penis going into the...the...whatever you call it."

C-U-N-T?

"The vagina?" I ask, my mouth betraying my brain.

"That's the one." Jojo says with a relieved air of certainty. I can see why she needed my help with that one. She was definitely of the crusty fanny category, I imagine the last time a light shined between her legs it involved the words "pap" and "smear".

Dinner ends and I am so grateful. Angus and I walk to the train station and he tells me of the nice talk he had with Baby Head. I tell him of the painful conversation I had with Jojo, and we come to the same conclusion-she's just a bit ignorant and naive, she hasn't been out in the world enough to see that either she needs to grow a sense of humor, or she needs to re-shape her opinion of Americans.

The C-U-N-T.

-H.

UPDATED-sorry, comments were somehow closed for that post when it got published. I've re-opened them. Sorry!

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:53 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 2292 words, total size 13 kb.

1 I admire you and compliment you on your control. I'm not at all sure I would have been that strong.

Posted by: RP at February 06, 2006 03:55 PM (LlPKh)

2 Hun er en jaevla fitte tryne og kan reise til helvete me kuken ret i raeva din. Heh. I told her. Stupid fanny faced whore. As I told you, you showed far more restraint than I ever would have. I would have tried to smother her in her pasta whilst asking why she was doing that to herself. Nubs, bubs, cheerio, tip top and a how's yer mum.

Posted by: Sir Henry at February 06, 2006 04:23 PM (ayZK4)

3 She'd have got on well with the Meester's old boss, seeing as how he thinks that London papers are written with the thought in mind that people have read them the day before.

Posted by: statia at February 06, 2006 04:37 PM (NsnoE)

4 She sounds like a real treat. It's funny to see the similarities between generalizing twats in the States who hate the French despite never having met any French, etc., and people like Jojo who do the same thing with Americans. Humperdink! Humperdink! Humperdink! Sorry, I couldn't resist. Iocane and all, you know.

Posted by: mac at February 06, 2006 05:21 PM (4sb5H)

5 Sounds as though she is sporting a well-placed American corn cob up her bum. Hope it chafes!

Posted by: Marie at February 06, 2006 05:41 PM (PQxWr)

6 gah, what a bitch! i would have had trouble restraining myself there. jeez louise.

Posted by: kat at February 06, 2006 06:53 PM (xJGrF)

7 Cheers to you sweets! for not only handling the situation well, but for making me laugh over it too! I'd have poured my drink on her. I swear. Either that or I would have started surreptitiously started throwing food at her, trying to get some in her mouth

Posted by: caltechgirl at February 06, 2006 07:30 PM (/vgMZ)

8 Kudos to you for not being snotty and spiteful right back, Helen. Although I would have paid good money to watch you offer her a bottle of Afrin nose spray, or ask her to spell vagina. Or tell her, "You know, all the women I've known that taught in Spain were dreadful women. Just pretentious twits who don't have a clue how to be gracious. They all had eating disorders too. Social X-Rays, I call them. Tsk tsk, you always want to shove a cheeseburger down their silly throats. Oh dear; where was it you said you taught again? Ohhh.... SORRY! NOT!

Posted by: Amber at February 06, 2006 08:16 PM (zQE5D)

9 Being a Minnesotan educated right here in the land of 10,000 lakes I can tell you the following: Yes we have sex ed. Starts as earl as 3rd grade and gets more embarrassing as you get older. We're a bunch of liberals - duh. Yes we have P.E. but due to tax cuts many music and athletic programs are being cut. However - I would say that this has only affected a small percentage of schools - and only in the last few years. Math is actually taught here in the cold ass north. Even multiplication tables - I know it seems crazy - we even have our own big giant companies with people from MN working there to prove it (3M and Medtronic). English and spelling - although you wouldn't know it from my website - spelling is also taught in this frozen tundra that I live in. Tell JoJo to come on over for a visit - I wanna see her skinny butt freeze while ice fishing.

Posted by: Suzanne at February 06, 2006 08:34 PM (GhfSh)

10 Damn you Helen! I'm trying to eat dinner here! Don't you know how awful it is to have chicken and rice go up your nose or to clean it off your computer screen from laughing too hard while your mouth is full? Sounds like this poor lass is in desperate need of multiple screaming orgasms. How 'bout loaning her your toy? Better yet, jam it in her mouth next time so she'll shut the F-U-C-K up.

Posted by: diamond dave at February 06, 2006 10:14 PM (g1qn0)

11 Yeah, I've had an encounter or two like that in England, and I'm hardly the "obnoxious stupid" types that were used as examples. Which always makes me want to ask, "So, what you're saying is you think I'm just like the TWO you've met, as are all Americans?" I mean, how we can all be the same, being one of the biggest, most diverse - and, apparently - one of the more tolerant places in the world? I mean, where I come from, I'd have my ass kicked if I started stereotyping people from other countries as being wholly one way or the other. I think, actually, we call that bigoted, or elitist, or something-ist, or somesuch. Anyway, I'm on my way over there in March, and I sure hope if it happens again, I can exhibit your grace. (And maybe even buy you and Angus lunch!)

Posted by: liv at February 07, 2006 12:24 AM (gMPYf)

12 Sir Henry has the right idea. You should have continued the conversation in Swedish.

Posted by: B. Durbin at February 07, 2006 06:47 AM (tie24)

13 Ditto everything Suzanne said. I may be slightly biased as I too was born, raised, and still reside in the frozen state of Minnesota. As a bonus we also know all about sex education and I can name all the parts not only correctly but also many popular slang names.

Posted by: cursingmama at February 07, 2006 04:09 PM (PoQfr)

14 Here in Minnesota we like to practice our multiplcation tables WHILE having sex. You coud also argue that sex is good physical education as well. So now, thanks to JoJo (which reminds me of some stupid children's claytype cartoon show JoJo's Circus), all of those days of awkwardly trying to cover up my very developed self during swimming class were all just in my head. Oh, and the sex education started in 4th grade for me ... with scary unibrowed science teacher. They were convinced by 6th grade that watching a woman give birth every year during health class would scare us all silly. Didn't work! But the other lovlies from this frozen hell put it much better than I did ... and much faster as well (my internet addiction has had to take a backseat dammit). I am proud that you didn't rip her a new one right then and there. I don't think I could've had as much restraint if I were in the same situation. Maybe it's the lack of carbs that have affected her brain ... and those who aren't really that awful suddenly seem so.

Posted by: Michele at February 07, 2006 11:06 PM (iTYOZ)

Hide Comments | Add Comment