The Angry Young Man

Back during Dot Com, when I was living in Scotland, my mother came to visit me. I thought she was just popping by Edinburgh for a quick visit and I might extract from her a few nights out at some restaurants and a shopping trip or two before sending her off on her own to make the world safe for democracy. Foolish, foolish me. After a shouting match in front of a chippy I frequented in Market Street, which witnessed her dissolve into a mess of sobs and tears before that dodgy bagpiper who’s always standing there, she asked me if I’d travel with her for a month. She thought it would be a great bonding experience. Since the gig I was working was coming to an end and I didn’t need to be back in the States to start law school for a few more months, I figured what the hell. She said I could choose the itinerary and promised to pay for everything. This meant first class travel and I found that very tempting. Besides which, having assigned her power of attorney over all my bank accounts before I left for Europe, she had all my money and rather menacingly indicated that she wasn’t going to hand it over unless I agreed to her request. I didn’t have much choice.

Suffice to say, the trip was a humiliating nightmare of extraordinary proportions that on several occasions witnessed me severely pissed off and frantically packing my bags at three in the AM, muttering obscenities under my breath, desperate to ditch her and her total and complete evil. See, my mother and I do not get along at all. Never have, never will. This became ever more apparent as we made our way across Ireland and France, two countries in which she had no interest. As many of you are well aware, the only country she was really curious about was the Netherlands and the only reason she wanted to go there was so she could buy and smoke the marijuana. Once we finally made it to Amsterdam, she set about buying as much pot as she could get her hands on and then forced me make up fake Dutch return addresses for the care packages she busily prepared for all her idiotic friends back in California. She’d even brought turkey basting bags with her in which to wrap up her care packages because she’d heard the dogs couldn’t smell through them. This is a woman who upon returning from a jaunt up Machu Pichu, walked right through customs with a shopping bag full of coca leaves. She’s insane.

Upon leaving the Netherlands on the TGV bound for Paris, she announced to me that she still had about a pound of reefer in her bags and that we’d have to mail it once we got to France. Unbelievable. I told her she should count her lucky stars for the Schengen Agreement, because without it, we’d have been subjected to border controls as we left the Netherlands and in that particular scenario, I would deny knowing her altogether. She, of course, was oblivious to the particulars of European Union law and didn’t know or care about the Schengen Agreement one way or another. Oh, I take that back. She did bitch and moan a bit about how she only got one stamp in her stupid passport despite the fact we’d been in and out of at least four different countries. My mother is typically American. For her traveling abroad is less about experiencing different cultures and ways of living and more about showing off for her friends back home. She was of the not-so-secret opinion that a multitude of visa stamps in her passport was a great way of establishing financial superiority over her acquaintances less able to afford foreign travel. Hey, I don’t make the rules by which the tacky bourgeoisie live, I just report them here, see?

As I stated before, the Schengen Agreement, is a series of European Union laws that abolished border controls between participating member states. Back in the 80’s, the Eurohumans realized that forcing people to show their passports as they traveled to and fro was a waste of time and money. Unlike us, the Europeans aren’t total paranoid xenophobes, completely obsessed with the ill will of foreigners. This of course does not include the British, who are as bad, if not worse than we are. I digress. They’ve accepted the fact that like 99.9% of visitors are harmless and just want to be left alone as they carry about their business.

True, a certain thrill is gone. I remember before the Schengen Agreement went into full effect and the excitement of being awakened in the middle of the night on a long distance train by indifferent Euroborder guards tersely demanding to see “papieren.” Now, traveling between France and Germany is pretty much the same as traveling between Nevada and California. Actually, traveling between Nevada and California is more of a hassle. You don’t have to declare your fruits and vegetables when you cross into Germany. This year the Schengen Area was enlarged to include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Now you can travel from Lisboa to Hellstinky without once being asked to show your passport.

Unfortunately, along with swift efficiency in the movement of chic Eurogoods and even chicer Eurohumans has also come bland uniformity. Check out these border signs. They’re all the same! No friendly greeting, welcoming visitors to a new jurisdiction. No promise of tax free shopping beckoning the lonesome traveler to unload their European Euros on useless goods and pointless services. No cheerful local symbols or monolithic monuments to local sovereignty. Just a bland EU blue background, the circle of 12 stars, and the name of the country into which you’re entering in the local language of choice. BORING!

The Eurohumans should learn a thing or two from the fine people of Minnesota. See this insane marker announcing to the intrepid voyager that they’ve entered the Great State of Minnesota? It’s like an 80 foot high chuck of granite located at a rest stop on the North Dakota border sporting a symbolic depiction of the mighty Mississippi River, lifeblood of Minnesotan commerce and prosperity. This domineering rock reasserts the power of the State of Minnesota. It says, this is Minnesota! Who are you?! You scurrilous, slack jawed, yokel trash, North Dakotan, freeloading, Republican, Christian fundamentalist hosebags! It reminds that potato sack clad Dakotan element that washes across the border now and then just where they are and that they’re expected to behave themselves while traversing a civilized state. Yet, it also manages to welcome other, non-Dakotan visitors and reassure them that Minnesota is a cosmopolitan, sophisticated place. See the reassuring words “welcomes you”? See the gentle cursive “Minnesota” in splashy red, evoking the gentle tones of the saxophone and the worldly, big city lifestyle of a Mary Tyler Moore? Now THIS is a border crossing sign. What does France’s sign say about France? Nothing. It says France. Stupet!

Of course, they could go completely overboard like Gibraltar there. It’s only appropriate that the biggest tourist trap in the Eastern Hemisphere should warn the guileless visitor just what they’re in store for before they walk across the runway/border from Spain and are forcefully separated from their European Euros…