It was obvious that Palm Springs was purpose built for luxury and leisure. It’s situated in the lushest part of the Colorado Desert and apparently is home to over 700 millionaires. Downtown Palm Springs itself was only a few blocks long and wide but packed into this small area was everything the rich needed. And what is that? Well, they need clothes shops don’t they? And jewellers. And more clothes shops. Oh, and beauty salons and cosmetic surgery and nail parlours. What else would you want if you were fat, rich and lazy? Of course, scores and scores of restaurants. And, surprise, surprise, that’s almost all that Palm Springs has. Most of the shops are run by elderly poofs who have all settled here because of the strong gay community that exists. Palm Springs however is just one of eleven separate resorts all piled on top of each other. The others are Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Thousand Palms, Sun City Palm Desert, La Quinta, Indio, Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells, Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs.
Our shopping mawl was at Palm Desert and soon after arriving I looked forward to a relaxing couple of hours waiting around while Emma, Sophia and Pauline went into every shop in the place. I found a seat outside the ‘Compounding Pharmacy & Wellness Center – Bone Density Testing, Body Fat Analysis – No Appointment Necessary’ and began to think about all the annoying things about the American way of life – just to pass the time.
You know this American custom of unlimited coffee when you’re eating? Sounds good but it just gets on your nerves. You can’t ever leave the place. Every time you start to get up it’s:
“You want more coffee?”
“No thanks – oh you’ve poured me some, thanks.”
You drink it and then:
“You want more coffee?”
“No thanks – oh you’ve already poured me some again, thanks.”
Four hours later and it’s beginning to get dark, your bladder’s the size of the waitresses bum and you’re still trying to finish the damn coffee.
It’s the same with salads. Every time you order a salad you keep getting asked which salad dressing you want. At first we asked them what they had but could only understand one of them and that was ‘blue cheese’, they always reel off the names so fast it’s a blur. Now whenever we’re asked, we sit there, pretend to think about it for a minute and then say “Mmm, now let’s see, blue cheese I think.”
Same thing with the eggs. We only ever have over-medium because that’s the only bloody one we can understand.
And what about the TV? I know we’ve all heard stories about how bad American TV is but until you’ve experienced it first hand nothing can prepare you for just how mind numbingly bad it really is. The adverts drive you mad. A programme will start, the opening credits will appear and it cuts immediately to adverts. The programme hasn’t even started yet and you have adverts lasting longer than the previous credit sequence. And so it goes on throughout the programme until you reach the end of the show when it cuts to adverts just before the end credits. It then cuts back to the end credits and as soon as they’ve finished it’s back to adverts again. But even more annoying than this is the way they cut to the adverts. There’s no warning, no lead-in. One minute you’re watching the programme, the next it seamlessly cuts into adverts and you haven’t even noticed the join. It’s the same in reverse. At the end of the adverts it seamlessly cuts back to the programme. There’s no pause or ‘end of part one’ to lead you in and out. One night I thought one bloke selling ointment for piles was part of the drama we were watching until Pauline said, “Don’t be stupid.” And if you start channel hopping, don’t get me started on channel hopping, if you start channel hopping to try and see what else is on it’s a near death experience. You can easily switch through more than thirty channels and get bloody adverts on each one so at the end of it all you still don’t know what’s bloody going on. And by the time you start again the first channel has already transmitted a couple of minutes of an actual programme and is now on the bleeding adverts again! You can channel hop forever and never know what programmes are on all bloody night.
And what about the radio? Before I came I was looking forward to cruising down the freeways listening to American rock radio but what do you get? Practically every station is either a God station or a Golden Oldie station. And every Golden Oldie station plays mostly hits from the UK. You never hear an American record and you certainly don’t hear anything that’s current. The radio has to be re-tuned every couple of miles or so as each local station fades out and a new local one has to be found. The DJs don’t talk much between records, often playing between five and ten records in a row which is good but this is just a ploy to use up all the time not talking by droning on and on with adverts again at the end of the record sequences. Oh and the other annoying thing is the way that presenters and news readers read out the adverts in the middle of their programme presentations. You’ll be listening to the news when the news reader will suddenly say, “You know Frank’s Pizza House downtown is THE best place for pizza, all day specials and combos you’ll want to come back again and again for. President Bush has issued an ultimatum to the Chinese people….”. Again, the switch from ad to news and back again is seamless and so bloody, bloody annoying.
What else? Yes, instead of saying, “Well done,” the Americans will insist in shouting out, “Good Jahb.” What’s that all about? For example:
“Hey, you wanna touch the dolphin Joey? There you go”
Joey touches the dolphin.
“Hey, good jahb Joey.”
It’s ridiculous isn’t it?
And why do they all seem to prefix nearly every sentence with “Oh my Gahd.”? It’s “Oh my Gahd, d’ya see that?” or “Oh my Gahd, I don’ believe it.” Or “Oh my Gahd, the TV’s broken.” Or “Oh my Gahd, it’s raining.” Or “Oh my Gahd, I’ve broken a finger nail.”
And if it’s not “Oh my Gahd” it’s “Hey.” The Americans are incapable of speaking in normal sentences, the word “Hey” must start each one off and sometimes you get both “Oh my Gahd” and “Hey”, in no particular order, starting the sentence.
It just goes on and on and on.
Left the mawl feeling much better after I’d got all that off my chest. Spent the rest of the day by the pool.
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