Unleashing the Douchebag Within (or an encounter with a gypsy pickpocket duo)

There's really nothing like a foreign country to bring back the tides of nationalism. After the election I was pretty fed up with my country and pretty much everyone around me knew it. Being in another country, however, inevitably made me a flag-waving patriot. I've always been a patriot, just not of the flag-waving variety. But here, you really get the attitude "I'm an American, I don't have to take this shit." In America, I'd say that my testosterone level is about four clicks below that of the average American jerkoff, but in Spain, I feel more dudelier than Burt Reynolds, and I don't even need the bad porno mustache. You see, Spanish men are short, and I am tall, very tall. I've never really saw height as such an advantage until I arrived here, and this, combined with the stereotype of the crude American cowboy, make me something of an intimidating presence. Normally, this attitude of American superiority or douchebagocity plays on my conscience when I'm waiting for mindless waiters who don't have to worry about tips, or service people who don't really understand the concept of service or mind the ever-growing lines of aggravated consumers. Normally, I'm very polite, trying to transcend the stereotype. Other times, I morph into a caricature. Case in point of my badassness:

A few weeks ago, I was on the subway with my friend after wine and tapas at the bar right next to the Institute. Afterwards, we boarded the subway and there was a lot of pushing, so my gypsy radar or gypdar was or gypdar was on high alert. As the train pulled to its first stop, a little, spindly man told me that it was his stop and I politely moved out of the way. Immediately, I realized that it was my stop, so my friend and I got off the train, and as is my custom, I immediately felt my pocket, feeling a lump in it was missing. (Please withhold the "is that your overstuffed American wallet in your pocket or are you just happy to see me" jokes.) I immediately say in a large, booming baritone "Donde esta mi cartera" which translates loosely as where is my wallet. I saw that the man who told me he had to get off was trying to reboard the train, and the adrenaline/testosterone started pumping. I collared him, literally grabbing him by the neck of his shirt, and turned him around saying firmly, "Donde esta mi cartera, Donde esta mi cartera, Abre los bolsillos ABRELOS, no, totalmente" or Open your pockets, OPEN THEM, ALL THE WAY. I have never spoken better Spanish in my life, and I've never been so assertive/aggressive in my life. I've always fancied myself the passive aggressive type, but there's nothing like the prospect of losing money and identity to really stir up the passion. Immediately, he gave me my coat and opened his pockets. I told him to open them more. I was in the process of taking him to the police and/or having him strip to his "ropa interior" when a woman said that she found my wallet and pointed to it on the floor. I never saw her, but after I got the wallet, my friend told me she dropped it out of her hand. I didn't get a good look at her, so I went up to the first woman I saw and said told her I was taking her to the station authority. She told me the real woman was just ahead, so as I was collaring woman number two, she told me to hurry up the stairs, I just missed the culprit. As I sprinted into a sea of indecipherable faces, my friend told me that woman number two was the culprit, but by that time she had disappeared, and I had checked my wallet to find absolutely nothing missing. I arrived at home, minus nothing, but plus the preceding adventure and an adrenaline fix for which John Ashcroft probably would have arrested me, but since I was in Spain and Senor Torture had replaced him already, this was not an option.

Still, I like my country a lot more when it's in the abstract, and I don't have to deal with the horrible politics that are going on. The nonstarter controversy over Million Dollar Baby and the gutting of FDR's legacy through the fallacy of privatization are news items that I read about feverishly online, but only make me want to extend my stay even longer, as in for the next four years. Two years at the very least. But I'm really trying my hardest not to make this a political blog, (a fight that I may be losing) so for now, I'll leave my mindless criticism at that. Until next time.