Having come from a culture and a city of cars it has been unnerving to not own one anymore. We are completely public transportation/ walking people now. As you may recall I did a small stint in the bus service when I lived in the Midwest- it did not, as you may recall, go well. After two day I was recruited into a street gang given the gang name of “Cricket McGrath” We broke into peoples homes and re-arranged their furniture so there was more of a ‘flow’.

There is very little an illiterate man can do on the metro, other than think long and hard about some pretty important stuff. At the Ecole Militaire metro stop a gaggle of students got on- it must have been some high school trip as they were all teenage German girls. I’m of the opinion that Germans shouldn’t look so happy when they’re Paris- perhaps turning it down a notch wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe looking a little less satisfied with themselves. That “what if…?” plaintive look has got to go. Anyway this group of German girls got on the train. Whatever their teachers are paid it isn’t enough. The loud talk, incessant chatter, the bursts of maniacal giggling would drive me up the wall. It reminded me of a special I saw about rhesus monkeys but without the feces throwing- thank goodness. All of this made me think about Islamic suicide bombers- bare with me on this one.

One of the apparent perks of martyrdom and suicide bombing is you are given “72 wide eyed virgins” in the afterlife (it isn’t mentioned how the 72 virgins feel about this). As I watched 6 of the “wide eyed” German girls try to share a single iPod headset and chatter like monkeys I wonder if the fundamentalists have really thought this one all the way through. 10 minutes with 6 of them was enough to make me want to perform a jihad on my eardrums; I can’t imagine 72 for all eternity. Perhaps instead of troops and guns we need to make potential martyrs sit in a high school class for a day- I suspect a lot of these shenanigans would cease. You might ask, “Who are you to propose such a solution?” Why I’m Cricket McGrath, solver of problems, re-decorator of homes.

*(This car, having taken one for the team, now enjoys all the benefits of 72, dark eyed virgins)