Diablevert

I'm a bigot.

I hate American tourists. There. Now you know. It is similar --- though not quite as intimate -- as a 13-year-old's shame in their parents, the same burning impulse to drag them away from the normal person --- in this case, the Irish person --- hissing, "You guys! You are embarrasing me! Oh my go-od." For instance, there are three, middle aged, deplorably chatty American tourists bellied up to the bar in the Lord Edward, telling the bartender stories about how they got kicked out of a pub in Temple Bar last night --- "and it wasn't even fancy," --- and she is trying to explain to them such subtleties as the distinction between the unspoken admission policies of Old Man's Pubs (e.g., the Lord Edward) and the pig-eyed bouncers at the tourist rip off joints that cluster among the quays -- and they are replying, (in a phrase you can tell has already been rehearsed in their heads for the delection of the folks back home) "Well, I've drunk in a lot of bars in my life but I had to come to Ireland to get kicked out of a bar for being too drunk!" Which is ironic, you see, because --- stop me if you've heard this one before --- the Irish are drunks. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Sigh.