When I visited Eastern Europe in 2001 on a music mission trip, I anticipated seeing lots of ugly communist block housing in grays and drab browns, next to dazzling but empty 800-year old churches; traffic jams of bug-like little cars that looked like Inspector Clouseau should be behind the wheel; little old wrinkled ladies with paisley scarves around their heads and wizened chin hair; sad-eyed children hitting up tourists in crusty little cafes in the downtown areas. I had seen postcards and slide presentations with these images. We were there, not to see the best of what they had to offer, but to minister to the small towns which needed a boost. Our work was simple - sing songs, bring hope. I was well prepared.
The first night at our gray-block hotel in a very small town outside a very large and very gray city, I rode an impossibly teeny elevator with only three walls. The graffitied shaft peeled by as I ascended and descended floors; perfectly safe, unless I leaned on the wrong wall. Then of course, I would die. The elevator doors, a lovely Socialist Red, opened and closed on hinges, like closets. The winches growled like wounded bears. I felt a little like Agent Maxwell Smart, not too sure if the elevator would take me up, or suddenly plunge me to the bottom.
My hotel room door was covered in richly padded, cracked brown naugahyde, studded with brass nails. It felt like Ben Cartwright from Bonanza had designed it. You had to use a key to open it, even from the inside. The room had a clean but saggy double bed and a small TV conveniently placed at the foot. The sign on the door -- in English, this being a hot tourist spot -- had an emergency sheet, laminated for durability and stuck to the wall, to notify you of the appropriate actions in the event of a fire.
The sheet had only one phrase and two sentences on it, exactly as below:
In Event Of Fire
1. Notify the hotel stiff. (sic)
2. Remain in your room.
I suspect the unwritten, but clearly implied sentence to follow would be:
3. Die quietly, no one wants to hear you scream.
Figuring I would raise my cultural awareness in this land so far from home, or at least lull myself to sleep, I channel surfed through bleary newscast after newscast until I hit channel 31, and my finger hovered above the remote, unable or unwilling to push the button for the next channel. It was well after 10pm, so I was understandably surprised when a terrorist-eyed puppet shaped like a Pop Tart was speaking in a very deep and masculine tone from behind a desk. I assumed it was a rerun of a children's program, and thought it odd that it was on so late.
It got even odder when I realized that the puppet had guests. Human guests. Adult human guests. A woman with lovely blonde hair and a very short skirt. A man with a deep chest and a shirt just a little too small for him. An old guy in a gray suit who laughed continually and sipped water from a blue mug. They spoke to the puppet as comfortably as if they were talking to a human host. When the puppet laughed, as he often did, he bounced up and down merrily, sounding like a pro wrestler trying to clear his throat, being strangled by his opponent.
When the little tv popped up behind Pop Tart man and started running a clip from a steamy film featuring the woman in the tiny skirt in a compromising position and a pretty skimpy outfit, I realized that the puppet was not a Post-Communist Big Bird, but a Post-Communist Jay Leno. He seemed to like the film clip very much; at least, he bounced quite a bit afterwards and his eyes seemed a bit shinier.
Later, I wanted to ask about this when my mission team wound up visiting the Minister of Culture, Education, and Athletics in the little town we stayed in later that week. There was something weirdly familiar about this neatly dressed bureaucrat; his nose, perhaps, or his deep masculine voice.
And then he laughed. Like a like a pro wrestler trying to clear his throat, being strangled by his opponent.
By the way, if you are ever in post-communist Eastern Europe watching late night TV, don't go to channel 32. Don't ask why. You really, really, really don't want to know.
No comments:
Post a Comment