i'm afraid of americans, i'm afraid of the world
So i was sitting in my car, ready to back out, in a parking lot today, in a very irate mood already, when a family tumbled out of a huge white van near my car and proceeded to assemble themselves behind my vehicle, trapping me. My brake lights were on and clearly my car was inching backwards, yet the two teenaged blonde siblings were standing a few feet behind it. Our eyes met in my rearview mirror, they saw my impatience and they sidled off out of my way. I started to inch back. That was when their father, in a hideous touristy get-up and carrying sneakers, moved into their place. I watched in the mirror as the kids' mouths dropped, then converted to smiles and were covered with their hands. The man was very clearly pleased with himself. He moved closer and bent over. It seemed that his ass was actually pressed up against the back of my car. He giddily slapped his shoes down onto the concrete and started to put them on as more of his relatives poured from the van. I released the brakes for just a heartbeat, and all the mouths opened in complaint. I rolled down my window, and it was then that i became what i hate: an Asshole American.
The man, apparently valuing his life, had already started to move to the side of my car when i began screaming, "GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY CAR!" The man called out, "Oh, oh, oh!" and backed away. It was the strangest thing-- they all acted like he had done nothing wrong. Two women started coming towards me shouting in British accents, "You have a problem? You have a problem here!" I backed up again and the man was clinging to the side of my car now, slapping it as it moved. I think one of his shoes was pinned under the wheel because he bent down and PLACED HIS HEAD UNDER A MOVING CAR. He should be grateful I didn't run him over right then. He then set his shoes on my trunk and of course I was yelling "GET THAT SHIT OFF MY CAR, ASSHOLE!!!" My door was open and the car was racing backward without my feet being even inside the vehicle, and this moron continud to linger around the bumper. More obsceneties were exchanged and as I came right up to their faces, I shouted, "This is AMERICA. We stay the fuck off of other people's CARS!" One of the women, probably his wife, came up to the window and shoved her finger in my face, saying, "You watch your mouth!" An old woman started yelling, "Well aren't you such a nice girl! Aren't you a lady!" I felt deeply ashamed, here's this woman shouting disgraces across a Florida parking lot in her prim British accent, at the vulgar American youth who was fighting back every urge to run over her son. I thought of tea and the parliament building, even a field of tulips and the Queen. And then I shouted, "Yeah, until I meet ASSHOLES like YOU!" and sped away.
I must admit, all of the British people I have met have pretty much had a snide, semi-mean and deragatory sense of humor that I can usually appreciate when not directed at me. Once, when working at the race track as a bet teller, I spoke at length with a Brit who asked me why I had chosen to work at such a God-awful place. I told him that my parents, uncles, and many members of my family had worked at the race track, though with the horses. Without skipping a beat he asked very seriously, "Oh, so what trailer park do you live in?" It was hilarious, but then again I hadn't been in a position to run him over.
Had I been on a horse at the time, things may have been a little different.