American Fez

Bureau de Change

Much like white light contains all colors, my black wallet contains the multihued currencies of many countries (keepsakes from a lifetime of travel and tourism). But, alas, this variegation of paper money does not comprise a full spectrum of wealth. In fact, it's really just a disappointing array of faded reds and dull greenish tones, fading into an indeterminate shade of brown. Hardly a chromatic spectacle never mind a rainbow promising its pot of gold.

Poor old depreciating crumpled bills. Even the faces of the famous worthies printed on them seem vaguely dissatisfied with their own valuation. For were I to exchange all the assorted euros, pounds sterling, Swiss francs, Carribean dollars, forints, and so on into a single currency, the total amount collected might be enough to buy me a small sandwich and perhaps a beer with which to wash it down.

Still, I enjoy admiring my little cache of cash from time to time. My foreign monies, crumpled though they may be, are far more inspiring than those crude plastic rectangles called credit cards; more romantic than whatever digital payment apps I could download to my phone. Behold the 200 forint note featuring the head of Robert Karoly and weep because the world of bitcoin is here. Oh to fill my pockets with a kaleidoscopic wad of tens and twenties from around the world instead of storing my bank account on a computer; to crack my nest-egg into a rainbow of legal tender rather than keep it in the digital cloud as mindnumbing ones and forgettable zeroes. 

A Pot Calling The Percolator Black.

Returning to the US after two weeks in Italy, the experience of waking up in America once more confronts me with that most pressing of questions: why is our Yankee coffee of such poor quality compared to their Neopolitan brew? An enigma which fittingly requires a great deal of caffeine to unravel. Some of us need a double espresso to address it, at any rate. 

I mean, it's not like American and Italy import beans from different countries: there is no hillside in Campania famous for its superb coffee crop; no state of the union that can only cultivate an inferior bean. The raw material comes from Brazil or Africa and Indonesia and is shipped to us and them. So why am I drinking less flavorful coffee at my local Starbucks than I do at the Gran Caffe Gambrinus?

No doubt the class of vessel into which the espresso is poured matters, as does the ambiance within which it is consumed. And the uniformed Marcello Mastroianni at Gambrinus is a coffee career professional versus the minimum-wage "barista" struggling with the Gaggia at the cafe around the corner from my house. But still. 

I could decant their respective espressos out into two plastic cups, blind taste-test them, and I'd instantly know which was American and which Italian. There is no contest: one is rich, dark and redolent of La Doce Vita; the other is, well, it is what it is, I suppose, and that's the best we can say of the substance. Come on, my fellow Americans, there is no excuse for this self-defeating state of affairs. We surely cannot make America great again without a decent shot of coffee to get us going.

Exchange Rate

When preparing to venture abroad to distant lands where foreign currency is required, I always feel a pang of nostalgia for the good old American Express Traveler's Check, that doughty companion of yesteryear. 

But once this rose-tinted, dewy-eyed moment has passed, I recall with a groan how it was necessary to provide about six forms of identification and a robotically exact signature before the wretched things could finally be exchanged for actual money. I often spent more time in the Bureau de Change trying to cash my traveler's checks than I did exploring the tourist sites I wished to visit.

Thank God for the modern convenience of plastic debit cards and automated banking machines, which make using traveler's checks seem about as practical as offering barrels of damp gunpowder and firewater to confused locals in exchange for information about the nearest Eldorado.

Of course, in these days of falling family incomes and ever-increasing household expenses, the biggest obstacle we face when exchanging our American dollars for Euros is actually having any American dollars to exchange in the first place, especially after we've already paid the extortionate transatlantic airfare to get to Europe, not to mention the price-gouging hotel room rate. 

So after thanking God for plastic debit cards, I pray He will also provide enough extra money in my bank account to get me around Italy, feed me, and even have a little left over to buy souvenirs. I call such supplication The Creator's Traveler's Check, and it's always easy to exchange anywhere at any time if you keep the faith.

The Unconsumed

Styrofoam cup tumbleweed careens through the city, colliding briefly with a carton containing the last quarter of a MacDonald's quarter-pounder, then gambols away again along the gutter where a half-eaten pizza slice is draped over the curbside like a melting Dali clock.

On the sidewalk, fragments of abandoned black bean and rice burrito filling form an intriguing trail for an urban Hansel and Gretl to follow, provided they don't slip on those discarded grease paper wrappers and snap their ankles. 

Come nightfall, you might expect the infamously ravenous city rats to gorge themselves on this improperly-disposed-of, all-you-can-eat buffet of fast food leftovers. But they don't. And neither do the squirrels, skunks or pigeons. Apparently, even the vermin regard such deep-fried and processed garbage as inedible poison to be avoided. It must await removal by the weekly street sweepers, or occasionally a concerned citizen might pick it up cautiously between finger and thumb and toss it in the roadside trash can if there is one.

Meanwhile, the Styrofoam cup tumbleweed rolls on down toward the river, either to drift out to sea or float off upstream to suburbia and beyond. So we bid 'bon voyage' to the non-biodegradable thing. No doubt we shall see it again, bobbing around amid the plastic bottles in the oil slick and silt in the polluted harbor of some distant land.

Ah, this waste is your waste, this waste is my waste, from the Dominoes Pizza to the Burger King, from the Waffle House drive-thru to the Taco Bell, this waste was made for you and me.