American Fez

An American Abroad

I speak decent conversational Italian ... just as long as my interlocutors do not speak it back to me. If they do, I'm reduced to blank stares, inaudible gibbering, and wild gesticulation with my hands. In other words (English words, thank God) my Italian can just about be understood but I cannot understand other people's.

Consequently, my definition of "conversational" is clearly open to debate; a debate best conducted in German since only the Germans have a word for my peculiarly double-Dutch approach to defining the meaning of words: Schittenfraze. At least that's what I think the word is. To be honest, I've never heard any Germans actually say "schittenfraze," but then I don't claim to speak conversational German so it's unlikely that I would. 

My conversational Spanish is also poor. In fact, the only Spanish I know is the Spanish for "tilting at windmills," an expression that will get you absolutely nowhere at a hotel, restaurant, sightseeing attraction, or beach. It might get you a loan copy of Don Quixote from Biblioteca Pública Municipal Iván de Vargas in Madrid, but that great novel won't be particularly useful if what you really want is directions to the Prado.

All of which generally leaves me speaking conversational English when I travel abroad. Not only can I be understood, but thanks to the excellent linguistic skill of most Europeans in service positions, I can also understand.

Unless, of course, I happen to say "The towels provided feel like sandpaper," which concierges never understand for some reason, even though the sentence is said so often in European hotels you'd think it would be included in most hospitality phrasebooks.

Render Unto Caesar

Considering the meager amount of personal income I accumulate each year, a derisory sum that condemns my bank account to a form of financial manic-depression, I must conclude that my taxes are too high, too complicated to complete, and cost far too much to file even when employing the services of a virtual accountant on the Internet.

Declare this; deduct that; submit these; exempt those; claim them; complete worksheet 9a for schedule 21c and attach to form 1040a. Then enter your 1099-MISC, 1099-DIV, 1099-R, 1099-INT, 1099-H, and W-2's. What debased and unhinged mind has dreamt up all this nightmarish paperwork? The tales of Edgar Allen Poe are mere whimsy compared to the spine-chilling immersion in unimaginable horror authored by the Internal Revenue Service. I suppose there's a good reason why H.P. Lovecraft looks like an ersatz tax auditor. I am about halfway through my IRS return for 2018 and already quite willing to swap quests with Odysseus. I'd have no problem sailing my ship between Scylla and Charybdis but the Greek hero could never decide between itemizing or taking the standard deduction.

It's also that wearisome time of year when psychopaths start announcing they are running for President. Frankly speaking, I'd vote for absolutely anyone who pledged to simplify the American tax system, even if their only other blowhard policy was to incinerate Asia. At this point, I'm almost willing to exchange less Byzantine bookkeeping for one global disaster and its ensuing humanitarian crisis. As Orson Welles asks of Joseph Cotton in The Third Man when perched high above the ground and gesturing toward a crowd of Austrians below, "Would you care if one of those tiny dots stopped moving?" No, not if it only took five minutes to fill out a single tax form that processes my annual refund from Government, Inc.

Those are desperate measures to be sure. But these, as any rationalizing relativist will concur, are desperate times. Of course, I understand it's important to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. But it increasingly seems like greedy Caesar is furtively sticking his name on lots of my stuff that doesn't actually belong to him. 

The Apathyville Horror

Suffering from a severe and seemingly endless bout of constipation, pinch-faced Aloysius Welch returned an unopened package of toilet paper to his local convenience store, EZ Mart, ostentatiously explaining to a bemused clerk that the four rolls of tissue in question were currently surplus to his requirements. Furthermore, he would prefer cash to store credit as his doctor had prescribed for his condition a powerful and surprisingly expensive laxative, Bowel Plumber Pro, that the EZ Mart convenience store chain inconveniently did not stock. And no, his case was extremely urgent, so it was inconceivable that he could survive the three day wait period necessary for EZ Mart to special order the laxative, assuming the special order would only take three days, which was laughably optimistic if his previous experience of special ordering pills and tablets at that particular EZ Mart was anything to go by. It certainly wasn't very easy, that was for damn certain. And yes, it hurt to laugh, even a hollow laugh was painful, so he would not even begin to contemplate such a course of stoic but ultimately doomed action with regard to his present predicament. Did Aloysius have a receipt for the item being returned? Of course not. Who in their right mind keeps a receipt for toilet paper? It's not like you can write it off against your taxes or anything like that, is it? Well, I suppose you could if your job entailed regularly testing toilet bowl capacity and flush velocity or something along those lines, but Aloysius refused to believe that was a real job anybody was actually employed doing. At least not in Apathyville USA or any of its neighboring conurbations, you could bet your bottom dollar on that.

It was at his point that the convenience store clerk, who had stopped listening to Aloysius long before, decided he would quit his own job when that day's shift came to an end. Only getting paid minimum wage for dealing with dickhead customers like this pinch-faced guy with the ass problem just wasn't worth the hassle. He would rather slouch around out back at a fast food restaurant, anonymously flipping burgers or filling tacos or whatever. Same money, no public. It was a win-win as far as he was concerned. Should have jumped ship sooner. He'd even dress up in a latex lobster costume or a full-body ear of corn suit, handing out flyers on the high street to people he knew, if that's what it took to get away from EZ Mart and the super-sized douchebags who shopped there. He was going to have to page the store manager to get off his fat, sweaty and probably equally constipated ass to approve the return because the dickhead customer didn't have a receipt. Manager to the register for a toilet paper return. Manager to the register for a toilet paper return. I can't believe this is my life right now. He just needed to get rid of this guy, suck it up until seven, hand in his notice and then he could go home and get high. Maybe he'd try to find out whereabouts in Apathyville the schmuck lived and toilet paper his house in the middle of the night. That would serve the asshole right. That's the kind of service with a smile he could get behind.

My Etiquette Tips For An Enjoyable Evening

Asked to bring either an appetizer or dessert to a friend's dinner party, alas, I find myself lacking sufficient time to cook or bake anything my hostess would deem an acceptable addition to her table. So I purchase six meal replacement bars from a nearby grocery store.

Full of protein and minerals but also chocolate flavored these convenient snacks can function as bite-size hors d'oeuvre, amuse bouche between salads, or even as a sweet accompaniment to a glass of port as the evening winds down. Such smart culinary solutions to perennial banqueting predicaments are why dependable guests like myself are always invited to the swankiest neighborhood events. 

But should I have brought an assortment of meal replacement bar flavors rather than chocolate flavor only? Having been forced to testily explain that the supermarket was a mere five-minute walk from where we were sitting when James, that triple-chinned buffoon, enquired about double fudge flavor, and that he could easily go there and buy his own, I can only conclude that yes, it might have been wise to bring two chocolate, two double fudge, and two strawberry yogurt instead of just the six chocolate bars.

Nevertheless, my six chocolate meal replacement bars, store-bought and lacking variety though they may be, were all devoured within an instant of their plating and presentation. The same cannot be said the diarrhea-inducing swamp of so-called "Moroccan dip" that James's equally fat wife, Hortense, made. It may have been Rachael Ray inspired but it was Death Ray cooked.

And to be perfectly frank, judging by the huge quantities of leftovers the hostess tried to foist upon us, I'm not sure anyone would have eaten anything at all if it wasn't for my handy meal replacement bars. They may not have paired particularly well with the bottles of chilled Gewürztraminer and India Pale Ale being passed around, but I can't be both dinner party savior and expert sommelier on short notice.