I’ve been catching up on the American culture I’ve missed while living abroad in Israel. You know, important stuff, like NASCAR, Black Pepper Jack Doritos, and The Anna Nicole Smith Show. Yes folks, this is the same country that brought you Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, and Bob Dylan. Anyway. A and I were watching the Shaq episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the one where Larry David accidentally trips Shaquille O’Neal on live TV, seemingly forcing the famous LA Lakers star to sit out the entire basketball season (which has just begun). His spirits perversely buoyed by the open hostility of all of Los Angeles county, Larry walks into a Starbucks and says:
“I’ll have a vanilla… one of those vanilla bullshit things. You know, whatever you want, some vanilla bullshit latte cappa thing. Whatever you got.â€
Had I been drinking a “freddo” at the time, it would have spewed out my nostrils in spasms of uncontrollable laughter. “Vanilla bullshit things.” Yeah, that just about sums it up!
[Full disclosure: I’ve never seen a NASCAR race, haven’t eaten Doritos, and *ahem*, OK, I admit that I watched the Anna Nicole Smith Show once (once!) out of pure, unadulterated schadenfreude.]
