Naïve Americans

My friend Patrick has a habit of introducing me as someone I am not, at these political conventions. A few years ago in Sydney I was the deposed Prime Minister of an eastern European country, toppled in a neo-communist coup.

This time he told many of the locals that I was a “Prince of New Zealand” and how as New Zealand is only an emerging democracy that I appoint one quarter of the Parliament. It was amusing to see how many believed this and asked me about it. Naturally I played along for at least a while.

Another example of what I call the young naïve American was on one of the buses when I was telling someone about my baseball cap which says “Jesus loves me ….. But everyone else thinks I am a wanker”. The young American asked what a wanker is. I decided to go for a non literal explanation and said it was basically just a term for a jerk. YNA then repeats the term several times and says “Oh I like that term, I think I will start calling people who annoy me, wankers”.

I did tell her that wanker is probably regarded as a more offensive term than jerk, and she should only use it for people who really annoy her, She said she would!