After having been here for a while, I’ve encountered a few different reactions from people about being American. My personal favorites are two very contrasting events that both happened in a bathroom.
The first happened in a bathroom in this pub we like to go to called the Slug and Lettuce. Myself, Carmen and one other American girl went downstairs to use the bathroom. There were five stalls in the bathroom but Carmen informed us that only the last one had toilet paper in it. We were going to wait but it was obvious that there were two girls sharing the stall so I decided to drip dry. My friends followed suit. Now my stall just happened to be the closest to the other girls so I was able to hear what they were saying while my friends were not. What I heard first was a terrible attempt at an American accent in which the girl was saying ‘like’ every other word. It was at this point that I thought to myself “Surely she’s not making fun of us when we’re two feet away.” Apparently, I was wrong. The next thing I heard was ‘Stupid fucking Americans. Nobody likes you. You should just go home. You say ‘like’ too much and you start every war anyway.’
(Now just as a side note, it may have been two for one cocktails at the pub on this particular night)
As you may have guessed, this did not go over well with me. After about three seconds of careful thought about my next step I emerged from the stall and said (direct quote) “Bitch please. I like how you talk shit behind a closed door.” After this the girl came out of her stall and asked me what I said. Basically, she was not prepared for how I reacted and she was all stuttery about how I say ‘like’ too much. It was at this point that she made sure to move very quickly towards the door. After informing her that it was a little pretentious of her to make judgments about me and my friends without even knowing us she pointed to her friend who was standing behind me and asked why I wasn’t yelling at her. I turned around to see the other girl with a look of panic on her face and I calmly informed them that the second girl was not being rude.
I then turned back on the other girl. I asked her what it was she had said about war. Her brilliant response right before practically running out the door was “Just shut up. Your voice annoys me.” As she was scurrying away with her tail between her legs I continued to shout things at her. They may have included comments on Tony Blair’s eagerness to invade Iraq and Britain’s treaty bound obligation as a member of NATO to be in Afghanistan. Or something like that….
My next encounter happened in a bathroom after one of my classes and was a much more pleasant, albeit awkward, experience. Slight background for this story: in my class there is a guy who likes to hear himself talk but he’s sort of an idiot. Being an idiot, he says really stupid things.
Examples of stupid things:
1) Arguing with me about how America now how nationalized healthcare.
2) Telling me all Americans are right wing and that there are no liberals.
3) Informing the class that it’s illegal in America to be a communist.
That helps paint a picture of this guy. So after class, I went to use the bathroom. Now the thing about bathrooms here is that the stall doors go all the way to the floor making it impossible to know who or if at all someone is in the stall. While in the stall, three girls who are in my class walked in. These girls are what would be typical of sorority girls in America so needless to say up until this point I had had very little contact with them.
The three girls were talking about the guy from our class. Mostly they were saying how he obviously didn’t ever know what he was talking about and he just made himself look like an idiot. Then one of the girls says “Not like that Megan girl who brings stuff up.” One of the girls asked which one that was and she said “The American girl. She seems to know what she’s talking about.” At the same time I was flattered and really awkward. I didn’t know if I should say something or just hide in there until they left. I decided to just walk out. As I walked out the girl who wasn’t in a stall caught a glimpse of me in the mirror and looked like she was going to die of embarrassment. I said thanks and awkwardly waved. I tried to tell them that it was much nicer than the last time I heard someone talking about me in the bathroom. But she misunderstood and instead launched into an explanation that she wasn’t saying anything bad only that I seemed smart when I talked. Um… thanks. Shortly after her friends walked out of the stall and were just as awkward as she was. I left as quickly as I could but could hear one of them say “Awk-ward” to the rest as I was leaving.
Moral of the story: Pee at home.
Only you, doll, would yell about Tony Blair in a pub bathroom.
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