The Ugly American

At the post office last weekend, I actually stood in line behind him. The Ugly American. The guy who embodies every quality Europeans - and likely the people of every other continent in the world - hate about us.

I first noticed how loud he was joking to his wife about how "there'd better be drinks" on their trans-Atlantic flight on British Airways. Soon, his obnoxious humor turned into what can best be described as irrational rage, when the postal employee at the counter tried to politely explain to him that his hospital issued "birth certificate" was not a sufficient form of identification. (He was applying for a passport, presumably his first.) The certificate he brought, which he insisted should be "good enough, g-- d--- it, I'm paying you four hundred dollars for these g-- d--- passports!" The certificate he was trying to use was the one with his baby footprints and a sketch of the hospital he was born at some 40-plus years ago. How does a grown man not know what a legitimate birth certificate looks like? As he repeated, while shouting and swearing at the employee, that he'd never been out of the country (you don't say?!) and how would he know what was needed, the employee calmly warned him that if he didn't stop verbally abusing her, she would have to contact the police.

While he continued to berate her, saying, "What the hell are they gonna do, arrest me?!" his two children, who were around 10 and 12 years old and most likely mortified, went out into the post office vestibule. His wife said nothing, just rested her chin in her hands and let him yell. Eventually a manager appeared and again told the man they would have to call the police if he didn't calm down and show his staff some respect. After about five more minutes of arguing, he finally realized he could indeed be arrested (and in our suburb, the cops are just itching to arrest someone for disorderly conduct, or expired city stickers, or failure to adjust one's rearview mirror before starting the car as instructed in drivers' ed class -- disorderly conduct would get you a write up in the local paper), and started to calm down. But all I could think of is how this guy and people like him are exactly what other countries hate about Americans who visit their countries. Well, that and that whole war in Iraq, the eight years we let GW Bush run the country, etc.

I hope he gets his pocket picked over there.