Monthly Archives: May 2010

Americans Do Too Know A Lot About Europe (part deux)

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Europeans criticize Americans for not listening to opera, tearing down any building that’s more than 75 years old, and for not knowing anything about Europe. But Europeans are wrong about what we know about geography.

I took an informal poll of the bona fide American citizens in my neighborhood, and was surprised to learn that Americans know almost as much about Europe as they know about America. Here’s part two of an alphabetical list of European countries and a compilation/sampling of what the people I talked to know about them:

 

Italian women make you feel dirty, which is why Catholicism is so popular over there. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. Boy, have I sinned.

Italy – All the fresh pizza and spaghetti you can eat 24/7, and it’s served by hot-blooded brunette babes who will treat you like a twenty-dollar whore on Saturday night but take your kids to Mass on Sunday morning while you recover from the red-wine hangover. Lots of statues there—not gay statues like they have in Greece, but statues of guys gutting other guys with swords. Leonardo DaVinci lived there. He was the painter who invented the helicopter and flew around in it with that chick in the painting, Mona something or Sophia Loren, or whatever her name was. Remember her? She’s the reason God invented tight sweaters and the confessional. Mea culpa. Home of the Pope, too. He moved there from Germany. He says it was because he likes Italian food so much, but I think he secretly likes Italian sweaters. Mea culpa. Stay away from the mobsters, though. Those guys are nuts. They’ll cut your nuts off with a rusty butter knife and stuff them in your mouth just to prove who’s in charge. Remember The Godfather? That’s the mob. They’re scary as hell, and control all the hookers and drugs in this country. Al Capone killed JFK and Marilyn Monroe, and the Cosa Nostra mobsters pretty much still run the American government. Still, Italy’s a nice country and I’d like to go there and eat some real pizza. I’ll bet it’s not the same as American pizza, except maybe New York-style pizza because they have a lot of Italians in New York, most of them mobsters, of course, but a lot of them just regular people who own Italian restaurants.

Kosovo – What?

Latvia – Sounds dirty.

Liechtenstein – Sounds really dirty.

Lithuania – Isn’t that where they make the really bendy, lightweight metal they use to build space rockets?

Luxembourg – A casino in Las Vegas shaped like a pyramid. I didn’t think they had pyramids in Europe, but I guess they must. Cool.

Macedonia – They find those things frozen in the ice all the time. You can still eat some of them even though they’re hundreds of thousands of years old. You just slice ‘em up and throw ‘em on the grill, Fred Flintstone style. I hear they carve the tusks into chess pieces.

Malta – Where they make Malt-A-Meal. I like the chocolate kind with butter and milk on it for breakfast, or sometimes for a late-night snack. It’s lousy cold, though.

Moldova – She was the sexy vampire milf on The Addams Family. Great show.

 

Princess Grace was the queen of Monaco, but she was pretty enough to be a Swedish porn star.

Monaco – Princess Grace was the Queen of Monaco and that’s where she lived when she wasn’t making movies or driving her convertible around town. It’s also where James Bond plays that weird card game that sounds like Barcardi Rum. Pound for pound, the richest nation on earth because of the casinos. Princess Grace and her daughters are so hot they could have been Swedish porn stars but they chose to be royalty.

Montenegro – Sounds really dirty and maybe a little politically incorrect, but I think it’s in Africa, which is in southern Europe.

The Netherlands – Europe’s crotch, I guess.

Norway – Everybody there skiis around with sniper rifles all day looking for Russians who are trying to take it over. Fucking Russians. The Norwegians are the king dogs of the skiing and shooting competition in the Olympics, though. The Russians will never take them.

Poland – They’re not much in a fight, but it’s where Polish sausage was invented. Delicious, too! No wonder the Nazis and the Russians keep invading it. I’d invade it, too, if it wasn’t so far away. It’d be great to have all the free Polish sausage you want. They’re great grilled, or in a stew.

Portugal – Christopher Columbus’ homeland. Good thing he discovered America, or we wouldn’t have a place to live. I’m not sure where Portugal is, though. It must be near a port named Ugal from the sounds of it.

Romania – That’s where all the good gymnasts are from, I think. I thought it was Russian, though, not European.

Russia – It’s not part of Europe, but it wants to turn Europe into Communists so it can attack America. They hate us there because we kicked their asses by getting to the moon first. Remember when their president banged his shoe on the table at the U.N. after the Bay of Hogs, or whatever? We fucked him over good with that one. They do make good vodka and those dolls that fit inside each other. I think that’s their main export, vodka and those dolls. The men carve the wood and the women paint them, drinking vodka the whole day to stave off boredom. They have a huge army and a lot of nuclear weapons there and if they think you’re a spy the KGB will beat the soles of your feet with rubber hoses until you tell them everything. The KGB are ruthless Commies, but the Russian mob is even meaner. If you cross them, they’ll shoot you in the face with their Russian Kalackinov guns without even blinking. They’re all like, “Hello, comrade. Fuck you, comrade. Bang!” And then you’re dead with your brains all over the sidewalk and they don’t even give shit that they just killed you even if it was in public and everybody saw them. Nobody fucks with the Russian Mob, nobody. Even the fucking Nazis are scared of them. I’d hate to meet a Russian Nazi. That’d scare the shit out of the devil.

San Marino – That’s a city in Spain. I think Dan Marino’s family is from there. He should’ve won at least one Superbowl, the poor bastard. Now he sells gloves or some shit like that. He’s probably still a hero in San Marino, though, so that’s cool.

Serbia – Sounds dirty, but not as dirty as Latvia and Liechtenstein.

 

Scottish men may wear women's clothing, but they can kick ass with just their left thumb.

Scotland – It’s the only  country in the world where a man can wear a skirt and play bagpipes and still kick your ass using his left thumb while he absentmindedly cleans the earwax out of his ear with his right hand. These people eat rocks for breakfast, dirt for dinner and wash it down with whiskey. They wash everything down with whiskey. Whiskey is like water there. Moms breast-feed their babies with it, children shower in it, adults fill the tanks of their cars with it, families wash their dishes with it. They invented golf, but they don’t play regular sports like we do. Golf is played with rocks and small trees there, and a golf course is like a hundred miles long, stretching out across mountain tops. When they’re done on the course, they throw full-grown trees and boulders around to prove how strong they are. Mel Gibson was born there and led the country in a battle for freedom from England’s oppressive rule. Most people can’t understand a word the Scots say because they’re probably the missing link between humans and apes and can’t talk all that well. Hairiest people on the planet, too.

Slovakia – Sounds like a lung disease miners get. “He got Slovakia and started coughing up blood and bits of his lungs. Died within three months.”

Slovenia – Sounds like a venereal disease. “I got Slovenia, and I thought my dick was on fire every time I peed. But the doctor gave me some penicillin and it cleared right up.”

Spain – It’s where they invented guitars and bullfighting. The women all have jet-black hair and sweat Spanish Fly, so they’re always wanting to have crazy passionate sex with you. Too bad they all speak Mexican, though. It’d be easier for everybody if they spoke English. It’s hard to tell Spanish people from Mexican people. I think Spaniards are taller and don’t drink as much tequila.

Sweden – The Motherland of porn. That’s why Sweden’s the richest nation on the planet, from all the money they make making pornos. It’s not right, but what else are you going to do when God fills your whole country with beautiful blondes, many of them twins? It was their destiny. Oh, I almost forgot: Some of the ugly Swedish people work in the factories building Saabs and Volvos. Volvo, hah! That sounds dirty. Anyway, most of them hardly ever work, except when they’re making pornos, which probably only takes a couple of hours a week, and is hardly like work anyway. I wish I was Swedish.

Switzerland – Best place on earth to get chocolate and watches and pocket knives with so many gadgets on them that you need an owner’s manual to know how to use them. They refuse to take sides in a war, which is pretty damn smart if you don’t want to get in a war but not so smart if you don’t want to get your ass kicked. They have lots of banks there, so they all get lots of bank holidays so they can go skiing pretty much anytime they want. That girl Heidi lived there, too, right? The Swiss also invented the Red Cross, which gives people free food after hurricanes and tornadoes and stuff. I’ll bet they hand out a lot of chocolate, too. I wish my house would get hit by a hurricane so I could get some free Swiss chocolate.

Turkey – Why would anybody in their right mind name a country after a bird you eat at Thanksgiving? It’s not in Europe, either. It’s right next to Afghanistan or something. They’re America-hating towel-heads just like the Arabs. Fuck them.

Ukraine – I crane, too, so what? There’s no harm in looking.

Vatican City – The Catholic Church is big, but it’s not a country. Don’t be an idiot, you idiot.

Wales – Nice try, but they don’t have whales in Europe. The Pacific Ocean’s too cold.

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Americans Do Too Know A Lot About Europe (part one)

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Americans may not dress well, but they're surprisingly well informed about Europe.

Europeans criticize Americans for wearing white socks with everything, using the incorrect fork at dinner, and for being ignorant about Europe. But Europeans are wrong about Americans, because we know a lot our brothers and sisters across the pond.

I took an informal poll of the bona fide American citizens in my neighborhood, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that Americans know almost as much about Europe as they know about America. Here’s an alphabetical list of European countries and a compilation/sampling of what the people I talked to told me:

Albania – What? Is that where Dracula lives?

Andorra – Sorry? Oh, sure, I had an Andorra sweater once. It was really soft, but I have no clue where it was made.

Armenia – My sister had Armenia, but she took some iron pills and it went away. Good thing, too, because she was tired and grumpy all the time. Now she’s just grumpy. On the surface, she seems like a bitch, but deep down, she’s a total bitch.

Austria – Julie Andrews was born there, and helped her whole family—she had like nine kids—escape from the Nazis by teaching the kids to sing and dance for a living. They made a documentary movie out of it called The Great Escape. Steve McQueen played the dad and dug a tunnel underneath the Alps so they could get away from the Austrian Nazis.

Azerbaijan – Wait, don’t tell me. Yes, I’ve got it! He’s the president of Iran.

Belarus – Isn’t he a gymnastics coach? You know, the creepy old dude with the big mustache who’s always hugging the girls in leotards at the Olympics?

Belgium – They make chocolate, waffles and diamonds, right? I don’t have any idea where it is, but I’ll bet they’ve got the best International House of Pancakes in the world.

Bosnia & Herzegovina – Bosnia’s where everybody fights all the time, isn’t it? Never heard of Hersgovina. Sounds dirty though. Hers Govina itches. She probably ought to have it checked out by a doctor.

Bulgaria – Bug malaria? What?

Canada – It’s owned by Queen Elizabeth and will be ruled by Prince Charles as soon as she dies, which ought to be pretty soon because she’s been the queen since, like, 1840 or something. The Prince of Whales is going to live there in the summer with that woman he dumped Princess Diana for, whatever her name is. I think it was Chlamydia or Claudia or something similar. Mr. Big Ears wanted to live in her pants—I remember that much about her. I didn’t think she was that hot, but each to his own, I guess.

Croatia – Bulgaria’s sister city?

Cyprus – Isn’t that a tree of some kind?

 

Most Americans believe most Germans are power-mad Nazis waiting for their next opportunity to take over the world, but they tolerate them because they also build great cars like the BMW.

Czech Republic – I’m pretty sure they play hockey over there, and that they’re communists. I think chess was invented there. Or hockey. One way or the other, that’s how they got the name.

Denmark – Everybody goes there to get free government pot, and hash is legal and pretty cheap. Whores are legal, too, and they stand in the windows of their houses pretty much naked trying to get you to come in to blow the money you were saving for hash. They have lots of soft cheese, which is good for spreading on crackers when you get the munchies after smoking pot. The country’s also famous for its windmills, wooden shoes and tulips. Wait, those last three are in Holland, right?

England – Those guys are our very best friends in the whole world, which just goes to prove that sometimes you have to stand up and fight for what you believe in even if it pisses off the king and leads to a lot of paperwork writing a new Constitution and Bill of Rights so you can stop paying so many taxes and have the right to bear arms. Englishmen are a little fruity what with all their tea drinking and biscuit eating and pomp and circumstance, but you know they’ll never forget what we did for them in World War II and that they’ve got our backs next time the fucking Nazis decide to take over the world again. Stiff upper lip and all that, right-o? I’d like to go there someday and see some castles, and Robin Hood’s family home in Sherwood Forest. It’s pretty much Europe’s most important state, so it’s where Americans should go first when they take a trip across the pond, as they say. London is Europe’s capital, and their White House is at 10 Downing Street. The Queen lives there with the Prime Minister, who’s sometimes a woman, so that must be a little uncomfortable unless they’re both lesbians, then it’s probably pretty convenient. Everybody in England has terrible teeth because they have public health care and it sucks.

Estonia – I’m pretty sure it’s a suburb of Bulgaria and Croatia.

Finland – I’ve heard of it, but I have no idea where it is or what they do there. Is it near Scandanavia or Ikea, where they make the assemble-it-yourself furniture? Wait! I’m going to guess they do a lot of fishing there and that’s why they have “fin” in their name. Am I right? I am, aren’t I?

France – Ah, France, the country that invented cheese, wine, mistresses and the ménage-a-trios! It’s also a nation of tiny, cowardly men and beautiful, sexy women with pouty lips and exotic foreign accents who’ll put out at the drop of a beret. They have lots of government holidays so everybody can go the French Riviera and walk around topless on the beach and have their affairs in the fancy hotels. It’s also the permanent home of the Eiffel Tower and that bike race Lance Armstrong sponsors to help raise money for ballsack cancer. You know, they call it the Tour de Balzac France. They’re also famous for their French fries and fresh French bread—or as they call them, fries and bread. Did I mention cheese and wine? They really screwed us over in Iran or Iraq, though. Cowards. They owed us one after World War II, too. They were getting their asses kicked until we showed up to bail them out.

Georgia – That’s pretty close to Alabama, I think. Or Arkansas. It’s in the Deep South, anyway. They grow peaches there.

Germany – A nation filled with fair-haired Nazis who build great cars like Audis, Mercedes, Volkswagens and the Porsche Cayman, the world’s nicest automobile. Hard-working sons-a-bitches who eat a lot of meat, get constipated and have nearly irresistible urges every five or six decades to conquer the world. It’s the birthplace of the hot dog and hamburger, America’s favorite foods. It’s also the birthplace of sauerkraut, America’s least favorite food. They spend most of their free time drinking beer, eating brauts and groping busty fräuleins wearing low-cut peasant dresses. There are no speed limits on their highways, which would be a blast in a Porsche Cayman. Never get in an argument with a German, though, because they’ll punch you straight in the face—even the women, who are as strong as the men because they do steroids so they can win the Olympics.

 

Most Greeks feel most Americans are idiots who don't appreciate Greek art as much as they should.

Greece – All-you-can-eat gyros, yum! They have lots of statues and old buildings with huge columns. Zorba the Greek lives there. It’s also where super-gayness was invented, judging by the statues of naked men wrestling. My general impression is that it’s a nation of angry, dominating women and their drunken fishermen husbands.

Hungary – Me, too.

Iceland – A frozen wasteland of rock, volcanoes and Björk, who looks like the daughter of Arwen the elf and an Eskimo. She sings like a volcano. A screaming woman volcano.

Ireland – Ireland is a man’s paradise, a country where it’s okay to drink all the beer and whiskey you want and argue about politics and get into fistfights with the other guys until you pass out in the street and your wives come out to drag you home. All the women have red hair and are named Katie or Sinead, by the way. I heard Bono is from there, although he doesn’t like it much because he’s kind of a pansy artistic type. The Protestants hate the Catholics, and they both hate the English, who ruled them with an iron fist for 12 or 13 centuries so they could take all their beer and whiskey for free. The national food is the potato, and most of the men are cops because they have to have a lot of cops to keep the drunks in line. A lot of them come over here to be cops because the pay is better. Oh, also, Ireland doesn’t have any snakes because St. Patrick chased them away with a big stick. That whole leprechaun thing is bullshit, though. You can’t get to the end of rainbow because it moves away from you when you walk toward it.

Look for part two of my survey on Tuesday unless you have something better to do with your time, like clean the toilet!

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I Dreamed I Was A Student In Turku at Valborgsmässoafton

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I had the strangest dream last night.

In my dream, I was an international law student at Åbo Akademi University in Finland, in Turku on the archipelago. I was wandering the city streets, and I was wearing a white hat with a large, black tassle—you know, the type of hat that Finnish engineering and math graduates wear at Valborgsmässoafton. It was a little tattered, and smelled faintly of alcohol. For some reason, I was craving strong black coffee, which I never drink.

So I kept walking, looking around for a café. Occasionally, I fell through the pavement and into a cavernous Wal-Mart store hidden beneath the streets. It was disturbing to fall through holes I couldn’t see, but I didn’t get hurt, and I was able to climb back up, although I bumped the top of my head on the underside of the pavement from time to time. Eventually, I found the Three Beans Coffee Shop, the little café with the wicker-top stools and the long wooden counter set near the bank of windows that look out on Humalistonkatu Street. It’s catty-corner across the street from the big insurance company, Fennia, and has a paving stone patio out front set up with a few small tables and folding chairs for the customers.

I stepped through the front door without opening it. Kent was playing on the radio, and the woman who owns the cafe was standing behind the counter. Although she is forced to run the small shop by herself to stay profitable, she was friendly, and smiled at me.

“Could I have a coffee, please?” I asked, speaking in Finnish as if it was my native tongue.

“I’m sorry, Your Excellency, but we don’t have coffee,” she said. “Only vodka—Finnish vodka, not Russian, of course—and a wide selection of fine local and imported cheeses.”

“Don’t you normally sell mocha? My Sister’s Mocha, for instance, the one with a bit of almond rocha in it? Could I have one of those? Or could I get a grasshopper mocha, the one with mint? Anything mocha?”

“Not today, Excellency. Today is the day after Valborgsmässoafton and we’re not serving coffees,” she said.

“Well, that’s most odd. Today is the day that I would think you would be selling coffees hand over fist, faster than your little hissing espresso machine can make them. But rules are rules, I suppose. Could I have a Vodka Latte Grande, please, and two of those chocolate-chip cookies in the case?”

“Yes, of course, Excellency. I just made them, so they’re fresh—still warm,” she said. Her English was flawless, although because I have a very good ear, I could tell from her accent that she was Finnish, or perhaps a Swede living in Finland. It’s hard to tell one from the other sometimes.

When she was done making the vodka latte, I paid her 6.05 Euros—2.00 for the cookies and 4.05 for the drink—and took a seat by the window, where I sipped the hot vodka slowly, reading the newspaper and watching other students walk up and down the street. I was the only customer in the café and it was quiet.

While the owner washed up, she chatted with me to fight off the boredom of her job.

“Did you have a good time at Valborgsmässoafton?” she said.

“I can’t remember,” I said.

“Then you must have had a very good time!” she said, laughing. “Where are you from?”

I started to answer, but stopped and scratched my head. “I can’t remember.”

“Do you know your name?”

“No.”

“This is very mysterious. You have amnesia, but you don’t have a mark on you. What is the last thing you recall?”

“I was writing a paper for my finals. Then I was walking through Turku with a tassle on my head, looking for a café.”

“Nothing in between?”

“No, nothing.”

“What was your paper about?”

“Environmental policy, management and law.”

“I don’t think they teach that at the university here.”

“It wasn’t here. It was at the University of Colorado in Denver.”

“Colorado! How did you get here?”

“I don’t remember.”

Now the owner of the café scratched her head. And that’s when I noticed that her skin was dark green, and that she had three arms and a full head of dark brown hair. She was wearing a very impractical pair of leopard-skin stiletto heels, and put in the mind of a secret agent—not Russian or CIA, it seemed, but maybe ex-Mossad, although I couldn’t say why. Her appearance was most unusual, and normally would’ve been jarring. But I was drinking a hot vodka latte in city that had a secret underground Wal-Mart, so I accepted her looks for what they were. Who am I to question the color of a woman’s skin, or how many arms she has? Everybody is unique, especially in dreams.

“Are you married?” she said, studying my face carefully.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”

“You’re wearing a ring. See if there’s an inscription. It might have your name.”

I slipped the ring off my finger. There was writing inside, but it was hard to read even with the light from the window.

“It says, ‘To my love, M.’ Or maybe it’s an S. Or P. Or…Or N. Or F. Or R. Or K. I can’t make it out. It’s very faint.”

She sighed. “What will you do?”

“I think I’m from Colorado. That’s logical, or as logical as this dream gets. Maybe I’ll hop on an airplane and go there. Maybe somebody will recognize me.”

“You can’t. Eyjafjallajokull woke up and coughed ash all over Iceland and the rest of Europe. The planes can’t fly.”

“What about ships?”

“It would take a long time, but it might be possible.”

“Can you pack me a basket of cheese and some bread for the trip? Lots of cheese? And maybe a dozen of those cookies, and two liters of vodka? I can pay you for the trouble.”

“Sure, but it’s no trouble. I own a café, remember?”

“Yes, of course.” I laughed, and she laughed with me.

“Can you tell me where the ships dock?” I asked.

“That way. Past the light toward the water.” She pointed out the window and down the street.

“I can walk there?”

“Of course. But be careful not to fall through a hole in the street. There’s a giant Wal-Mart underneath, and sometimes people get lost there and keep shopping for years. By the time they finally realize what’s happened to them and come back up into the real world, so much time has passed that they’re very old. Their husbands and wives and children are all dead, and they don’t have anybody left who remembers them. It’s very sad.”

“Oh, yes. I fell through several of the holes myself before I got here. I don’t want to get stuck underground, but I don’t know how to avoid them.”

“Hold your tassle out in front of you. When there’s a hole nearby, it will change color. If it’s blue, go right. If it’s orange, go left. When it changes back to black, you can go forward safely without stepping into a hole and falling into the Wal-Mart.”

“Amazing!” I said.

“Finland is an amazing country, although a little too cold in winter and a little too short on peanut butter in the summertime,” she said, smiling. Then she went behind the counter to make the food for my trip. In a little while, she handed me a basket of food and drink.

“I put some boiled eggs and rakfisk in there for you, too. The rakfisk will keep on your long voyage, and it’s a Finnish delicacy.”

“I’m grateful. Thank you for the help,” I said, getting up to go.

“It’s my pleasure,” she said, waving goodbye to me with all three of her arms, which seemed very cheerful even though I couldn’t remember who I was or where I was from. “Good luck, Excellency!”

“I’ll need it!” I said.

And when I stepped through the café door on to Humalistonkatu Street, I woke up.

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Please Put Down Your Pitchforks And Let Me Explain

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Marilyn Manson's ugly but I suspect that he and I have something in common: We're both night people.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t born in the 1400s, because if I had been, I’d be dead now.

Wait, that’s not exactly what I mean.

Of course I’d be dead now if I’d been born in the 1400s. The 1400s were, what—one, two, three, four, five, six centuries ago? Yes, 600 years ago, unless I’m forgetting to count a finger. Nobody lives 600 years, not even Jack LaLanne, who has harnessed the power of fruit juice and dark blue jumpsuits to extend his life far beyond the norm. Certainly far longer than I wanted him to live.

What I mean to say is that if I’d been born in the 1400s, I would’ve spent my short, unhappy life being chased through the woods at night by angry villagers armed with pitchforks and torches.

Why?

Because I’m an extreme night person, and the ignorant, early rising villagers would’ve assumed that I was a vampire or a werewolf or something equally creepy, like the rock star Marilyn Manson. Marilyn Manson—or Brian Hugh Warner, as his mother calls him—is as ugly as it gets in my book. Even without the weird makeup and bad hairdos, I can tell that he’s super ugly, what I call Greasy Pale Nerd. He was probably born that way, so I feel sorry for him, although that doesn’t excuse him for striking back at us normal-looking people by stealing Alice Cooper’s act.

One of Alice was enough.

Something the three of us may have in common, though, is a bat-like preference for staying up very late at night and sleeping during the day.

Chronobiologists, or sleep scientists as regular people call them, estimate that 5 to 10 percent of all humans are night people—individuals whose circadian clocks run counterclockwise. I’m one of them. Left to my own devices, and I have a number of very interesting devices that I like to be left to, I tend to stay up until about 4 a.m. and sleep until noon or 1 p.m.

Some people wake up at 5 a.m. feeling like this.

It’s not convenient, because most of the rest of the world runs on a schedule that keeps pace with the sun; People usually get up when Señor Sol rises, and go to bed shortly after he sets. Most people in my office, for example, show up for work between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. and leave for the day 8 hours later, or 5 or 6 hours later if the boss is out sick or on holiday. I show up, somewhat reluctantly, at about 9 a.m. and diligently put in a full 8-hour shift, although occasionally I punctuate it with spontaneous naps that I like to describe as “creative thinking sessions” if anybody catches me snoring in my cubicle.

I don’t especially like being a night person, partly because I have to work to make a living and it’s damnably hard to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. and then get up at 8 a.m. the same morning to go to work with everybody else. Among other things, by the time I get to the donut shop, everybody’s already taken all the doughy chocolate frosted ones and left me with the cakey maple creams or cinnamon butter brickles. Yuck. I’d rather not have a donut than be forced to eat one of those stale bricks.

But I also don’t like being a night person because morning people tend to be terribly arrogant about their up-and-at-‘em ways. Extreme morning people—those freaks of nature who spring out of bed at 5 a.m. tap dancing and singing Broadway show tunes—are always asking me stupid questions like “How do you get anything done?”

“The same way you get things done, only much, much earlier because I don’t waste my nights sleeping,” I say.

Morning people are also prone to spouting off clichéd aphorisms designed to shame me into changing my slothful ways.

“The early bird gets the worm, Michael!” they’ll say. Or, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise!”

To which I usually respond, “Piss off!”  Or, if I’m really tired, a particularly nasty phrase that sounds a like “Mmmphpiffle!” but means something akin to “Listen, Sunshine, I hope a rabid squirrel crawls up your perky ass and dies!” If I happen to be feeling weirdly alert for that time of day, sometimes I’ll graciously invite them to discuss the issue further with me—over a drink at 1 a.m., for example. They almost always decline, of course, because morning people are inherently lazy and never consider staying up late to accommodate a night person in the same way that night people routinely get up early to keep morning people happy.

When I have to get up early, I usually wake up feeling like this. Except I'm usually not wearing a blouse or lipstick.

Author Carolyn Schur, a lifelong night person herself, managed to get up early enough to study sleep research and interview about 400 people for her book, Birds of a Different Feather. One conclusion she reached is that circadian rhythms are inborn, and can be comfortably adjusted only temporarily. She also found that night people rarely get credit for working late, and that many night people are also tremendously talented and work in creative professions such as graphic design, writing and exotic dancing.

But I think her most significant finding is that many people aren’t happy with their daily schedules: Although 85 percent said they were forced to follow an early bird schedule—going to bed early so they could get up early—22 percent said they would prefer to stay up later and sleep until at least 7:45 a.m. Another 21 percent said 10 or 11 a.m. would be even better. Nearly 98 percent said they’d prefer to be like the other 2 percent—the Paris Hiltons and Lady Gagas of the world—and not work at all, getting up only to go shopping or to have their picture taken by paparazzi at Spago’s.

About one in five American workers now enjoy a flexible schedule, perhaps because more employers recognize that everybody’s different. Or maybe it’s because the economy’s lousy and about one in five people is unemployed.

Whatever the reason, I do have a dream.

It is a dream that is deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that flexible schedules will continue to spread throughout the American workplace.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up at about mid-morning and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, even though some of them don’t get up until well after the cock crows, double entendre not intended.” I have a dream that one day right here in America, little black boys and white girls who get up in the early morning will be able to join hands with little white boys and black girls who get up closer to noon as sisters and brothers.

This is my hope.

Let freedom of schedule ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado and the Stone Mountain of Georgia to the curvaceous slopes of California and Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

From every mountainside, let freedom of schedule ring!

Until that dream is realized, however, I’m very glad that I live in the city instead of the country.

Why?

Because most people here in my part of the village don’t own any torches or pitchforks, and they’re too busy sleeping to chase me around at night.

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