I just got done reading David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” a collection of really funny essays about random shit and also, about living in Paris and learning to speak French. I don’t read so much anymore as I am way too addicted to the internet for that, and when I do I usually read travel stuff or stuff I know will put me to sleep. “Me Talk Pretty Some Day” is not boring and not about travel, and I loved it, which means I should probably start turning off my computer more, something I have known for some time, actually.

Anyhow there is one essay in this book where David Sedaris is on the Paris Metro and some American starts telling his wife/date/fuck/whatever about how they needed to watch out, because David Sedaris is a PICKPOCKET. In English, on a train, loudly, the guy goes on to talk about how a pickpocket got him here or there and how you had to watch “them” every minute. So David Sedaris just stands there going “wha tha fa” and doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want it to turn into a “handshake moment.”

So after I read this I start thinking about something I read on the slowtalk message board, how a regular poster had been on the bus in Florence with her two nieces, and some loud America pointed at the children and screamed to his companions, “WATCH OUT, THEY’RE PICKPOCKETS!.” Clueless and crew, wandering cities around the world, so stupid they call EVERYONE a pickpocket. Like no one else speaks English.

This kind of shit gets my panties all in a twist. So I started thinking, hey, the next time I go to Europe I am going to become a Silent American Non-Pickpocketer Who Fucks With Stupid Americans. I will go from metro to metro, piazza to piazza, holding onto the poles of subways menacingly and eyeing giant video cameras with slitted, knowing eyes. I will walk behind people a little too close, and when they turn around I will smile and shrug. When they call me a pickpocket I will just glare at someone else like I don’t understand anything, not my own language even.

But really this won’t cure the problem of people fearful of pickpocketers, and in the long run (I know myself) I would want to do something more, like SAY something. Especially if I’ve had a glass of wine or two. I’d end up saying something like I was on the streetcar in San Francisco, if someone like this happened to board and started spouting off about someone in front of them being a pickpocketer. Like “ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON? HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN ANYWHERE BEFORE? NEVER RIDDEN ON THE SUBWAY OR BUS? DO YOU NOT HAVE EARS? EYES? WHY IS IT, YOU ONLY HAVE A BIG, FAT, LOUD MOUTH?”

I’m not sure what good any of this would do, but it would be fun to hassle some scared-of-pickpocketers-to-the-point-of-making-them-even-stupider tourists.
And maybe I could write about it, and then write the whole thing off.

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