Countries, Pt 1

For my job I go to a lot of embassies to "legalize documents." I could go into more detail about what kind of documents and why, but I don't want to bore anyone. Instead I'm going to stereotype entire countries based on my 15 minute experiences at their embassies.


Sweden: I got a papercut reaching for one of the documents. I was quickly surrounded by 8 nurses with blond pigtails and hot cocoa dispatching free band-aids, at taxpayer's expense.

Mexico: One of the men in line offered to do my job for half of what I make. He also told me that he had some space available in a "shared room" in a townhouse. He neglected to say how many people I was sharing with.

Canada: The staff couldn't have been friendlier. I asked them if they knew of any good ethnic food in Washington. They pointed me to some great Canadian restaurants.

Portugal: I kept thinking they were speaking to me in Spanish, but they actually weren't. I don't know what language it was, do they have their own language over there? They smelled kindof funny, also.

Chad: I actually ran into Angelina Jolie while I was there. One of the women applying for her passport left her baby on the counter, and Angelina came up and snatched it. She screamed "I must add you to my collection!!" and ran off with it.

Ireland: None of the workers were actually noticeably drunk (I bet you thought I'd make a joke about that, didn't you?) But I opened one of the windows on a sunny day and they all cowered in the corner. Apparently they hadn't applied a high enough spf.

India: All the workers at the Indian Embassy were actually outsourced to India. So I had to call India to get someone to buzz me in and take my documents. But for some reason he insisted I call him "Steve Jones" and had no noticeable accent. Strange.

Iraq: I told a guy in line that I couldn't tell a Sunni from a Shi'ia if they slapped me in the face. He then proceeded to slap me in the face. So I guess we know he's one of the Iraqi Muslims that is angry at Americans and has violent tendencies. That doesn't help much.

For a look at the Sax take on states instead of countries, click here.