This Again · 8 June 2002
You’ll agree that, when it comes to certain stereotypes, it can be great entertainment to see someone not only live up to that stereotype, but also add to, and indeed refine, the cliché beyond all expectation.
In line at the grocery store yesterday I felt some honour to be standing behind the consummate, ultimate English Bastard: a smug fuck on vacation doing, he seemed to feel, the French a favour with his presence, his keen critical senses, his Euros.
The place was packed, the lines were slow – 5 PM on a Friday, duh – and irritation was showing all around. Before he even opened his yap, though, I sensed something was going to be annoying about this guy: vague military countenance, white comb-over, poorly selected jungle wear reminiscent of the days of empire, a permanent facial expression apparently etched by the smell of shit. And when he did open his moustached gob we began to hear all the different ways that he found it intolerable to wait in line like the rest of us.
—Six checkouts and only four are open. Look: one two three four five six.
—Look at her, she’s hardly moving. Bloody hell.
—Where is she going, there are people waiting!
—Oh how do they get anything done in this country?
—Oh, no need to rush unloading the cart, dear, we’ll be here a while.
The fading trophy wife (second? third?) didn’t have anything to add to the stream of complaint, choosing instead to nod indulgently at each while staring out the windows. Everything about her was tight, thin, reedy, galvanized.
As they approached the checkout, two teenage girls appeared, carrying a bottle of orange juice. This is not the land of the express aisle, thus people tend to let those shopping light in ahead. One of the girls, her eyes gently imploring, hadn’t even finished saying ‘Excusez moi...’, when the English Bastard turned his back on them. No bloody frog gets a leg up, wot wot. Snort.
I almost decked him. When they finally got through, of course, the English Bastard stood there motionless, still smelling shit, while his wife bagged the groceries (booze, jam, sausages, crackers, booze), before theatrically unzipping his billfold to produce some of that funny foreign dosh, about which there was more complaint.
Through it all I kept wanting just to yell something like ‘Why don’t you shut the fuck up you spoiled fucking child’, but did not, lacking, I suppose, the conviction.
Just as they were about to leave, I turned to face them. I touched the wife on the forearm. They both froze. Looking into her eyes, and, faking the best occitan-inflected drawl I could, said, ‘You life muss be verry bow-ringuh’.
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