So we were in the elevator of maybe the most spectacular hotel we have ever been in—that is the thing about being a freelance writer: free hotels, occasionally; health insurance, no—and we accidentally got on when the otherwise upwardly-moving elevator stopped at our floor. This, as it will, confused the clearly American elderly couple in the elevator—and we say again, “as it will”, because we shouldn’t have gotten on, and when we did—whatever. We’ve all been in an elevator before. Anyway, the older American man is like, “Guess this is where we’re going, not sure where we were.” And they get off.
And then—and then—the horrible other man in the elevator is like, “Americans,” and he and his wife \ mistress \ girlfriend roll their eyes and laugh. No. Snicker. Snarf. And we just stood there, with that prickly feeling we get before we are about to explode in a ball of rage: not just because they were annoyingly bitching about some elderly couple who got turned around on an elevator, but because everyone else in the world now feels like they have the right to, and—oh oh oh, because of all of those reasons we wait, with our breath held, for November 2008.
So rather than, say, garrotte the horrible man, or puke up our breakfast on him, we turned to him and were like: “What,” and we said this ending with a period rather than a question. “So are they all stupid, the Americans?” and we said this in the broadest, flattest American accent we have ever had. (We would have given anything, by the way, to have been able to say this in Swedish, even though the couple clearly wasn’t.) And they laughed in that way, when someone has said something unpleasant to you that you didn’t expect, and we glared at them—in that weird, serial killer-y way we know we can—until they got off the elevator. Because as much as we despise our current political leadership, we love our country, and most especially our elderly sightseeing co-citizens, who were just trying to get to their freaking hotel room without being mocked.
Now here is the thing: the stereotype of the dumb American tourist is really not so different from the stereotype of the German tourist in his knee socks and shorts, or the Japanese tourist with the five different cameras hanging from his neck. Tourists are tourists, the world around. But we have been overseas long enough, over the past four years, to know that things have changed for the worse, for the stereotype, if you will, of Americans, and honestly we blame our—we don’t even have the word. We would pray for impeachment if not for the even-worse alternative. Because we believe in our country, and our elderly citizens in foreign elevators, snarfed at by asshole random European guys that we should’ve just puked all over. Okay, so that is not a measured response. But we await the day—all we will say is that we went down to the reception area, still glaring at anyone who dared to look at us, and we sat and said to ourselves: “What would Mike Bloomberg tell us to do in this situation?” And he would say, “Ignore the assholes, and get back to work.” And so we shall.
This is why we have a category called “Rant.” Back to our regular programming momentarily. We illustrate this with Acne Jeans, since that is where we are going to calm down. Hex Black Royal jeans, about $200
