United States of Absurdities

Prologue: In Which I Am Sent Back to Europe for the Crime of Leaving the US Legally

I want to tell you how I came to write this book. It begins, as many American stories do, with paperwork, a fluorescent-lit room, and the dawning realization that the rules do not apply in the direction you assumed.

I had been living in New York for several years. I owned an apartment in Manhattan, ran a business, paid taxes, and had pending petitions for both a work visa renewal and a Green Card. By any reasonable measure, I was exactly the kind of person a country might want to keep.

My work visa expired on a Tuesday. I left the country on Monday — the day before. This seemed, to me, the correct and law-abiding thing to do.

I was wrong.

When I attempted to return, I was pulled aside at Newark Airport into a room that smelled of industrial cleaning product and quiet despair, and informed that I was "over-qualified" to enter the United States on a tourist visa.

Over-qualified. I had never previously encountered this as a problem.

I was not applying to be a Vegas showgirl. I was trying to go home. To the apartment I owned. In Manhattan.

What I noticed, while being fingerprinted like a common criminal, was the room around me. There were people there with no documents at all. No English. No return tickets. No discernible plan. The officers looked at them, shrugged, and waved them through with the cheerful efficiency of someone letting guests into a garden party.

I, meanwhile — with my apartment, my business, my tax returns, and my extremely organized folder of paperwork — was handed a boarding pass back to Europe. At my own expense.

I ordered a glass of wine and began, in my head, to write this book.

In Europe, we call it honesty. In New York, they call it a lawsuit.

Chapter One: Beauty Queens and Brain Cells

There is something quite touching about the American obsession with being pretty. They treat beauty like a moral achievement — as though God hands out tiaras at birth for good behavior.

Coming from Europe, I always thought that the most important thing a person could be was smart — in fact, being clever or educated was almost like a currency — wit was charm; and a sharp conversation over dinner was better than any designer bag.

Then I moved to America.

Here, it seemed the national religion wasn't intelligence — it was beauty. The kind worshipped at high school dances, in glossy magazines, and on reality TV.