Every Thursday, I get to go to our pub, The Station, and sit and watch some American telly. I go for the purpose of watching ‘How I Met Your Mother’. If I get there early enough I can catch ‘Big Bang Theory’ which usually has some funny moments. And after my show, ‘Accidentally On Purpose’ comes on. So, its a nice hour and a half for myself and a pint of Stella Artois. There’s generally not a whole lot of people in the pub on a Thursday evening but tonight was the first time I thought about asking Peter to turn up the volume, the level of conversation noise and the amount of people was larger than is normal. Usually it’s the tv that’s a bit loud for me. Tonight was also another first… When I walked in, Peter said, “ah, so you in for your bit of show, eh?” They’re really pretty nice about letting me come in for it. Sometimes, Peter’s got on the tv already, watching ‘The Hotel Inspector’. It’s an hour long, but he’ll change it over for me when my show starts. Nice of him, and it makes up for the gentle wave of insults he pours my way.
Tonight, he was on top form. I was having a conversation with another customer, Karen, before my show started. She was asking the generic orientation questions you ask about someone from a different country, “what do you do?”, “why are you here?”.. blah blah blah. Of course the conversation flowed to what I do for a living (or used to) and how I was trying to continue it here. She asked (unsurprisingly) “what do you teach?” “Geography. And history, too.” I replied. Peter, lovely Peter, pipes up, “it’s a fooking shame that you get geography teachers who don’t know where the countries are. The Americans’ll be talking about Afghanistan on the telly, and they’re pointing to Australia. ‘s a bloody shame, that’s what it is.” To which I immediately retort, “Afghanistan, Australia…they both start with an ‘A’. Cut them some slack.” ”I bloody well have to, given the state American education is in.” OMG. So I bite the bait and decide to play. I ask, “does Afghanistan have a coastline?” Peter pauses. “No, they don’t. It’s Pakistan that’s got the coast, what with Karachi being the big port there.” And I’m pleased for him because he’s right and that’s nice for someone who might have only gone to school up to age 16. But only for a moment because then he retorts, “now what’s it’s new capital now, eh?”
Okay, I know it’s Islamabad but I was in the middle of texting Brent and Autumn and Peter has the cheek to accuse me of looking it up ON MY PHONE! And he doesn’t even have the decency to follow up after I’m done. So, I’m pretty sure (73%) that he thinks I’m typical stupid American. But there was some weird thing in a newspaper photo that he kept saying were nuts. I wasn’t listening that closely, my show was on. But Karen was involved and all I remember her saying was, “are you barking mad? I don’t see any nuts.” I don’t want to think more about this.
I’ve been going to the Station on Thursdays with some regularity. Missed once, but it was my birthday and I was at a movie (Eclipse). Anyway Peter comments about nearly every actor on my show, particularly Johnny Galecki and Alyson Hannigan. He comments about what shows they used to be in or what movies. His favorite is the actress from Gilmore Girls, Lauren Graham. Doesn’t care about any other American shows. Thinks they’re crap. But he knows others because, well, you can’t really be unaware of American shows here and so he’ll utter random statements as questions about the actors on the current show. He did it again tonight, but in a way that caught my attention. It was like he’s never seen these shows. I called him out on it. “Dude, you’re here every week I am. We have this conversation every time I come in to watch the show.” Nothing fazes Peter. “Yeah well its not like I watch these shows. Avoid them like the plague don’t I?”, he replies.
I give up. For the evening. But not before I join in with Karen teasing him about male menopause. Which might be real, who knows?
To those of you who read 7/27, things are looking up, like they do. It’s never grey here in my head for very long.
