I'm Not Saying Americans Are Stupid...

... but I may well have met who's bringing down their average.

I was in the Bombardier last night to meet a friend from the Irish college, David, who'd briefly returned to visit Paris for a few days. It's a quiet bar nothing particularly special about it and is generally regarded as the local of the Irish College.

We were sitting minding our own business, about eight of us, three guys and five girls, when a guy passed by on his way to the bar with no shirt on. Slightly bemused to see someone wandering around with no shirt on but even more scared and confused to see this guy seemed to have waxed every hair from his body, he drew some confused glances. Apparently noticing he muttered something in what may have been some sort of poor attempt at an Irish accent. Immediately noticing that he was American we took this as explanation enough. Someone probably said "twat", we all nodded and went back to our drinks and conversations.

A while passed before he passed once again, this time with his shirt and his girlfriend. He stopped at the shoulder of David who was sitting on the outside of the group of tables we were occupying. Right at Dave's shoulder, he grabbed his girlfriend and started sucking face (there's no other way to describe it). Once again we were left confused as to what this twat was playing at but when we were obviously ignoring him he went away.

It wasn't till he finally returned that things became truly odd in the most comical of ways. He passed on his way to the bar and on his return stopped at our table.

"I know y'all don't like me", he began.
"...", confusion reigned on the part of the assembled Irish and Danish masses.
"But I'm a good person y'all and I know you don't like me", he drawled. "My name is Madison", with this he took one of the girls hands went down on one knee and kissed his own wrist.
Isn't Madison a girl's name?
"Ok", replied David eventually the first one to break through the veil of confusion. "We don't really care, now go away."

He didn't take well to David's attempts to tell him to leave and began explaining quite indignantly that he was from "Adlanta, Georguh".

"We're from Ireland," replied Dave, "Europe."

He pointed to his cap which boar the initials GS - "See this, MoFo?"

"Oh yeah the Georgia Seagulls", I had to groan in my head at that reply. Only 10 minutes earlier David had been explaining it was a year since he'd last gotten into a fight.

This idiot was setting himself up for a smart-ass reply with every word he uttered. He was speaking like the illegitimate child of 50-cent and Ashton Cutcher; raised, after he had been abandoned, by the cast of Deliverance in the deep-south. He was the alpha-jock - the stereotypical Southern US hick, Fox-watching flag-waving moron. I was of the opinion that these were the Americans that never got passports but sadly he'd somehow slipped through the net...

Things were getting quite heated as David would say something calmly but perhaps with the merest hint of sarcasm, which Madison, God bless him, would not understand and which he would ask David to repeat to his face while staring into his face from two inches away. Dave would and he still wouldn't understand.

Eventually he departed, seemingly frustrated with the lack of respect he was being shown.

His parting shot at David was, and I hope I'm spelling this right, "You ain't nothing but a punk as bitch. Holla [back] at you, dawg!" This outburst of nonsense was punctuated by a scissors gesture into David's face.

We were not left wondering what form of mental disability Madi was suffering from for long however, as he soon was back with some of his friends - a fellow American and a Australian.

Apparently he had bemoaned to his friends that we were showing him a lack of respect. When he returned however he assured that it was just David that he had a problem with, most likely because of his believe that David was a punk-ass bitch.

A battle of wits soon commenced between David and Madi. Just to give you a flavour of their exchanges...

"Can't you take a joke?"
"Yeah, just not from an Irishman" oooh!

"I didn't think people went to bars any more just to start fights"
"Say that again to my face!"
"I didn't think people went to bars any more just to start fights"
"Yeah?"

Lookily enough the Australian was a much more agreeable sort, as most Aussies are. We explained to him the situation and he was immediately on our side.

"You should tell your friend to calm down"
"Say that again to my face!"
[Repeats what he just said to his face]

His friend managed to talk to muppet off the ledge. There was a handshake and finally we were left alone to finish our drinks.

Later still, on his way out Madison shook David's hand and hugged him. Never have I seen a group of people so confused by the actions of one moron. Gave the night a talking point though, as well as reinforcing stereotypes...