“This is,” he thought, “a perky little rig.” Step on the gas and zoom. Sunny day, traffic is light. Crap music on the radio but no big deal. To make it even better, the cute guard is on duty at the UN, she waves him past before he can fumble his ID this time.

Many empty spaces in the parking garage. Zip into a close one. Turn off lights. Set parking brake. Exit vehicle. Shut door. Assume jaunty pose and *doink* the remote-control key at car.

Instead of locking car, the trunk pops open. Go to trunk and root around inside for a minute, so that anyone watching might be tricked into thinking your man opened it on purpose.

Glance at remote-control key, surreptitiously, figure out which button actually locks car, and try again.

Thanks Kismet for linking this story and reminding me of something I’d totally forgotten.

On my first trip to Europe, as a high-schooler in July 1976, our group spent a few days in Paris. We had lunch at some restaurant somewhere. I remember only that we ate outside, had spaghetti, and the old lady that ran the place loved Americans so much that she gave each of us a big hug and told us about the liberation.

I guess she’s dead by now. Or really, really old.

A night or two later, our Dutch guide, this big fat guy with long hair and a beard, took a few of us and a chaperone, this good-looking brunette from Idaho, to a small cafe, where a little old man played accordion, and his daughter with one leg shorter than the other sang songs. Later, the little old man pulled the chaperone’s bra out her sleeve and hung it from the ceiling. Only then did I notice all the bras hanging from the ceiling.

In retrospect, it might have been the moment that part of me decided Europe would be an interesting place to live.

Very neat:
Here
and here. And here.

Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not anti-American. In fact, I’m American. I’ve lived in Austria long enough to be eligible for citizenship, but hesitate to apply largely because I still believe in certain things associated with the United States.

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Several weeks ago two blue envelopes arrived from the local courthouse containing papers certifying that we had indeed transferred to our village our ownership of a strip of property extending out to the middle of the road in front of our house, only I wasn’t home and so my envelope was taken back to the local post office by the mailman because it was an official envelope that he could only give to the addressee with proof of identity and proper signature.

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“It happens a lot these days.”
[Via Words Mean Things]

Number 36:

FUN WITH HITLER: Rockwell Schnabel, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, shocked Europeans in Brussels a few weeks ago when he lectured his audience on the dangers of letting Saddam Hussein go free, comparing him to Hitler. “You had Hitler in Europe and no one really did anything about him,” Schnabel said, apparently forgetting that the U.S. remained neutral on Hitler until 1941. Schnabel ended his speech by reassuring Europeans that “this has nothing to do with oil.”