Americans do it better

On a long trip to a foreign land, there comes a time when you stop accepting and start judging. I’ve been here long enough to admire this beautiful country and its proud and friendly people. Now it’s time to ask them what the hell they’re thinking. These questions are addressed to Argentinians everywhere:

Why don’t you turn on your car’s headlights at night?

It’s 4AM. You’re attempting to cross a street in Buenos Aires. A cab comes squealing around the corner at 60kph with only his parking lights on. He almost hits you, then flashes his headlights at you as if you did something wrong. Huh? If those headlights can flash, they can turn on. Then the cabbie can SEE YOU, and wouldn’t have to flash his headlights when he’s about to HIT YOU. Same for the bus drivers. Driving around in the dark without headlights on makes no sense, especially if you’re wearing slimming black because you’ve gotten fat eating too many Argentinean steaks. Why why why no headlights?

Your dog just took a shit in front of my new tennis shoe. Why don’t you pick it up?

Dog shit smells bad and is difficult to wash out of the treads of one’s shoes. Plastic bags are light and portable, and can pick up dog shit in a jiffy. Why not use them? I like to walk with long, purposeful strides which convey a degree of grace and poise. It’s hard to do this if one is Irish step-dancing around dog piles every few feet on the sidewalk. I don’t piss in your doghouse – why does your dog shit on my sidewalk?

How many ugly French cars are on your roads?

Beat up Peugeots. Sagging Citroens. Ragged Renaults. They’re everywhere. And they’re ugly as sin. There’s a reason you don’t see these wimpmobiles in America anymore. It’s because they’re funny-looking, they have bad suspensions and they break down a lot. (Note: the author has fallen in love with the Peugeot 200-series hatchback, so that model is exempt from this diatribe.) Where are the Freedom Cars like the Hummer H2? How can old people be protected from harm without their 20-ton Crown Victorias? You Argentinians have your own style – you don’t need to ape the French. Try ours.

Why do you eat bunnies and cute baby goats?

At our hotel in Cachi, Miles ordered “cabrito”, or kid goat. The next day, at the farm adjacent to our hotel, we noticed one less baby goat in the herd, and a distraught nannie goat. The next night, he ordered rabbit. And the next morning, the fluffy white bunny in the hutch simply wasn’t there. Is it really necessary to eat young, cute animals? Why not old and ugly animals like the indigenous American blue-footed mcNugget bird?

This is South America. Why the bidet?

We have it easy in America when we take a dump. We do our business, wipe with toilet paper, and flush. The Argentine people, being for the most part DESCENDED FROM EUROPEANS, choose to use bidets. But there are many kinds of bidets. Like the one in our rental apartment, which I turned on and which promptly shot a geyser of ass-cleaning action directly up and into the plasterboard ceiling of the bathroom. Or the misaligned one clamped to the toilet at the hotel in Salta, which administers a scalding laser beam of water directly onto one’s thigh, soaking one’s sock, and then one’s shoe, with water of questionable clarity. The French call it sanitation; I call it aquatic rape. Why, again, the need to ape the French?

-J