I cursed a stranger's name in a stranger's tongue. I felt the foreign words slide past my lips, and thought the sensation akin to tasting a new spice. What strange etymology led to the formation of such alien sounds? Better question, when did I become so xenophobic?
I had to remember that this cagey cretin did not represent his entire people, and fortunate they were for this fact. If he did, I would have little recourse but to declare the whole lot of them conniving, tight-lipped assassins of virtue and common decency. He smelled of old shoes and taxi cabs. His outfit consisted of corduroy pants and a cotton short-sleeved button-down shirt on which bright jagged stripes plotted a confusing course from collar to hem. His footwear looked as if it had been lifted from a bowling alley. He was an ethnic Cosmo Kramer, but he was deadly serious.
"You insult me in my mother tongue," he said quietly, "and so I will have the audacity to do the same. You, sir, are a balding, soft, slack-jawed American yokel. You would not know culture if it came up behind you and shoved a railroad spike up your pudgy Yankee ass."