Green

I've discovered that the world does not like America. As nice and cuddly as we appear, they for some reason, ^it eludes me^ they think we're a bunch of lazy, egotistical, idiots. Apparently there are stories in the Newspaper, entire columns dedicated to stupid things Americans have done, or are doing. In the group I'm in, when we complained how we were missing various things American they others would laugh at us. Not in a cruel way, like you'd think that a French man would, snarling about "Stupid Americans," but in a friendly way, saying that they had problems too, and we should calm down.

But it got worse. Whenever American life would arise, I would suddenly hear the word "green." "Oh, that is so green," "Well, Michael's not as green as Ami," etc. I asked people what they meant, what they were referring to. The color of our money? The Statue of Liberty? What?

It came from one of the Norwegians. Apparently, she had developed her own theory. Americans, she realized, were very nice people, but they had their heads in the clouds, and had a different set of values then us. So, she reasoned, the cause of this was that a long time ago, the future of the US was shaped because Martians came down on the states, and helped populate them. They created half of the American civilization. They were very nice Martians, but aliens nonetheless, which is why America is so strange now. And consequently, our adjective is named after our forefathers' skin color.

Novel idea.

The problem was, that it got out of hand. We were Green, and so they were intellectually, and culturally superior. If we erred, it was a symbol of green. Some of these were kind of funny, and to an extant I agreed with them. In one case, my roommate was talking to one of the Norwegians about Jewish customs. Vegard, the Norwegian isn't religious, and doesn't know a lot of them. But Ami, my Brooklyn born roommate, was opposed to a new one he encountered on the Kibbutz. I don't remember what it was exactly, but the conversation went something like this.

"In America they don't do anything like this,"

"Y'know, I really don't care what they do in America. It's kind of irrelevant."

"No, when I said America, I meant London, Paris, Australia, even Oslo, anything outside of Israel." So, OK, that was a nice, neat Freudian slip. But the problem was that everytime we tripped, we slipped, we were sick, or we complained, it became "green."

Now there are five countries in our group. There's the US, the Norwegians, one Canadian who refuses to have anything to do with the Us of A, one Swiss girl, and some Mexicans. It was the Mexicans who picked up the green, and ran with it. Everybody speaks English; we communicate in English. The Mexicans however speak it the least of the three, and have developed their own little clique.

The thing bothered me a little, but not much. But my countrymen from Frisco, New York, and Cleveland were apparently not used to getting picked on for being a minority, to the extant that I had. Again, it didn't bother me. When you're name is Mike, and you're a religious Jew where there aren't many, it's easy to see which name I was very used to. But, these American girls, and Ami, had no idea where to go with this. I've had experience.

"Look, personally, this doesn't bother me. But your offending my countrymen. I'm sticking up for the girls. If you keep calling us names, then we will have to do the same. And there our some pretty bad names for Latinos. Comprendes?"

I think he realized they'd gone too far.

Get me outa here!!!

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Michael Kadish
"I'm about to have an old friend for dinner." - Hannibal Lector, Silence of the Lambs (only the movie)

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