USA Email Series 26: America. The end.‏

(First sent: 17th December 2009)

Good afternoon you rare, rare people,

So just when you thought you had done your penance and gotten rid of me, here I am like an evil pixie of hate to sign off on the greatest email series since a climate change scientist emailed his boss to tell him to 'keep it quiet, but go ahead and turn on the electric heater, I've got good news'.

I've been home for a couple of weeks now, and despite the weather in this country making me check to see if I have any blueprints for an ark to hand, things have been going well. I've been catching up on some Christmas shopping and only the death rattle, grim faced, onion sucking assistants in the Bullring have even come close to replacing my cheer with humbug.

The far off land of Amerikazakstan now feels like a distant memory. Not because of the time that has passed, but just because that sort of alcohol intake will do that to a brain, pickled like a dead rat in a cider barrel.

To help me reclaim the past and regain those far off memories, I've been transporting all the previous emails in this series onto my new blog page (http//asavagereservation.blogspot.com) so go take a look. All future musings will be on there, so this message really does represent the last of the series. You lucky people. Really lucky. Feeling lucky? No? Well, bah!

My faith that you, dear reader, represent an elite group has been somewhat shaken by looking over some of the stories of Americanada that you have sent for me to distribute to the group, it's felt like a group therapy session for the criminally insane, orchestrated and presided over by an abashed priest. I have no idea which way to look... well, actually I do.

The first one that caught the eye was this delightful tale of battling hunger in the US:

"The best I ever saw was a picture of a 90 year old granny in the hall of fame for taking on and completing the 72oz steak challenge in Amarillo Texas. I'm sure there's some joke in there about a good gumming! :)"

In my life, I have never made, or even thought of the possibility that a steak challenge would lead to fame, but clearly for the elderly of Texas consuming the livestock is worthy of hero worship. I'm just amazed she resisted riding the thing around the place until her hip bones rattled out of their sockets.

Here's a gem:

"Have I never told you about my 6 days in a Texan prison face down in a pillow!"

Thanks for that one. Sometimes the words 'mark as spam' don't really get close enough. But it's not all cultural missives. Some of your tales are beautiful in their simplicity:

"Deep in rural England a young American service couple came to live. They were red necks from Alabama. One day while out for a walk they found a small creature and returned it to a safe place. Feeling full of well being they called in for coffee and related the story of how they returned the lost turtle safely back to the river. We later found one poor drowned tortoise."

See how even nature suffers for the American dream. But that's not all. I like the following tale very much...

"We got to Salt Lake City and were staying at a campsite. We asked them at the reception desk about getting to downtown which was probably only 3 miles away. One of the guys said he'd give us a lift in so we were delighted.

As we pulled off he started explaining how Salt Lake City is the headquarters of the Mormon church (which we knew) and how he was going to give us a tour of the city (all the Mormon hotspots!). As he did so, he gave us a well rehearsed hard sell of why we should convert. My brother-in-law thought it'd be hilarious if he thought he was getting somewhere. Which only added to his enthusiasm.

Then he pulled up outside the main church place and arranged for some 20 year old who was there on a mission for a year to give us the tour. Poor girl had a glazed look on her face and was clearly brainwashed but we politely followed her around and tried not to get sucked in as we got the hard sell again. At the end they were quite forceful and even the "We're from Ireland and really Catholic" / "my mum would have a heart attack" lines didn't work.

We got brochures on how to save ourselves and weirdly enough souvenir pens. We were picked up by the same guy and brought back to the campsite. We spent the rest of the evening drinking tea i.e. wine out of our mugs (its a dry state) and left very early the next morning hoping my mum appreciated not getting a phone call home to say I wasn't coming home because I found God."

The best part of that tale is the last paragraph. I love the idea that saving yourself comes in the shape of a handy souvenir pen. He moves in mysterious ways...

But not as mysterious as....

"Our taxi driver in Memphis told us a charming story about when he got into bed late at night, "popped it in" and realised it was his wife's mother."

Words fail me. So I'll hand over to someone else...

"Steve and I were driving from Houston to Austin and we stopped at a 'traditional' Texan truckstop where the locals regarded us with some curiosity. Never had my stereotypes regarding Texans been so acutely realised, there was one guy sat in the corner who was actually wearing denim dungarees with no shirt underneath, and a trucker cap that was probably advertising some flavour of agricultural paraphernalia.

He regarded us as you might something that you dig out of your nose. Despite this, the waitress was fairly friendly and tried striking up a conversation (reproduced verbatim):

W: So, where y'all from?
Me: Wales
W: Whut?
Me: Wales. It's a country.
W: (Blank look)
Me: Next to England
W: Uh. Are y'all from London?
Me: Er, yes, quite near (in Texan terms, just down the road)
W: So, y'all visi-tatin' over here?
Me: Yes (No, I am actually Texan. I just pretend to be British to stand out from the crowd)
W: Well y'all enjoy...here (do you actually know where you live?!)

And so forth. All this was conducted under the withering glower of Bubba T. McSorley in the corner, so we thought we would make our exit before he started threatening us with his pet Gator. We politely passed up a slice of the local delicacy, namely some sort of pie made of congealed fat, and took our leave."

Nice array Texas baiting in this one. I love it. Not a good idea to bait the Texan though. If they get cornered they can peck and become quite vicious, so it's always best to use a muzzle.

Here's a tale of how a quiet conversation on America by brother and sister can get out of hand:

"Me to My Brother: "So, how awesome was America? Honestly words can't explain how awesome it is there!"
My Bro: "Yeh, it is amazing but (in a very loud voice...) how annoying is it when they say "have a nice day!"...its like even if you said "oh my nan's just died they would just be like "oh that's nice dear...have a nice day!"
Joe: "Ash did you realise there is a table of Americans behind us?"

What are the chances hey???!!! How dare they. Not even having the good grace to announce their presence before commencement of the wine and cheese course? Those sneaky devils.

So that is indeed that. Thank you all so much for being on the business end of my American ramblings over the past 6 months. I loved every minute of it, and I was so happy to get so many nice messages from you all. Remember I am still alive and want to hear from you. America. It's the greatest country in the world. Apart from England. Ohh, and Canada's nice. So's Germany.... Hmmm. Not so good an ending now. Perhaps it's best just to say; America. It's a country.

In the end though, the whole thing is probably best summed up with the final message:

"I've racked my brains for two days attempting to find some form of America related wit to regale you with, and although I can think of a few- I think my stories are much better sampled over a bottle of wine- so we'll keep it that way, yes?"

Can't think of anything I'd rather do.

For the final time,

Byeloveyoubye. xx