Finger-Lickin' Good

Since Cousin Red appears to not be able to make bail this week, Basil asked if I could help out today. Although why he thought I would have something to say for White Trash Wednesday bothered me at first. Then I remembered this story I told him ... and knew why.

British Rob is fascinated with America. He travels to the U.S. for business often and can spend hours talking about the political and cultural differences between the U.S. and England. In fact, he has even come to the astounding conclusion – drum roll please – that George W. Bush is not in fact, stupid, but merely a poor public speaker.

Rob is married to my friend Lesley, who I met when she was spending her year abroad at my college. They were dating at the time, and he came over a couple of times that year to visit. They now have a 10 month old baby, Marianne. We try to get together every couple of years and they have just arrived for a two week stay. They will be driving to Tennessee to visit some friends and then accompanying me to North Carolina.

Whenever we are together, he tries to talk with an American accent. Unfortunately, he either ends up sounding like Shaft or like an 89 year old woman. He does a spot on Prince Charles, though.

We often engage in friendly debates over which culture is superior - but we do agree on one thing: All Canadians are smug and the only thing worse than a smug Canadian is an even smugger French Canadian.

On Saturday, I met them at the airport (sign in hand) and drove them to their hotel where they are staying the night before going to Tennessee. Lesley and I then went in search of fast food – something “Southern” that you wouldn’t normally find in England. Now, if you are familiar with the Atlanta airport, you probably know that the surrounding area is quite rough, and as we were driving, we felt conspicuously out of place.

We decided to go to Popeye’s and (as usual) we were the only white people in the store. We came back to the hotel, sat in the foyer with our chicken spread out and began chowing away. We had forgotten to get utensils, so we used one of Baby Mari’s spoons to eat our rice and beans. Lesley and I were telling Rob about our “adventures” in the ghetto and Rob, sounding like Granny Klump, says “you two are sitting here having a go at black people and we’re the ones on the floor eating chicken.” How about them apples!