My girlfriend left for Germany last week, which forced me once more to examine my decision to spend all of my semesters in the safe maternal pillow of Malibu.
Am I sour about it? Ha, not one bit!
After all, what is possibly going on overseas that can’t be enjoyed here in Malibu, apart from the financial shakedown before you board your international flight?
Is it the food? Don’t think so, Buenos Aires. Chipotle is five feet from my apartment, and it’s more glorious than ever. Think we’re missing out on eastern delicacies, Shanghai? Pick Up Stix is here in Calabasas, and it took everything right with Asian cuisine but eliminated the bad stuff, like MSG and parasites.
But in Switzerland, there are the Alps, amazing chocolate and the world’s best standard of living!
Um, first of all, this is America, and if there’s one thing I know about this country, it’s that we don’t recognize “studies” that don’t portray us in a flattering manner. So take your standard of living elsewhere, Lausanne. You have a point on the chocolate.
But who needs mountains when you have XBOX? Just today I played basketball at Madison Square Garden and snowboarded down to save the world from a Nazi Zombie apocalypse. I scoff at your fresh air.
“Now wait a minute, Ben,” you might say. “Florence is home to the richest history and most beautiful art found anywhere on earth. Surely you’ll concede that point.”
I see your Da Vinci and raise you Honey Boo Boo Child. Check.
“OK, well, London has Big Ben, was home to the 2012 Olympics and has Kate Middleton! And she’s pregnant!”
I’m sorry, but am I the only one who hasn’t forgotten about a certain something that happened exactly 237 years ago? They were trying to tax our tea, you guys. Tea! It starts with us studying there abroad, and it ends with us in powdered wigs and Union Jack straitjackets. No, thank you.
“Heidelberg is like a Disney dream world, a slice of history that transports you back in time and allows you to realize all of life’s wonders!”
Call me when it’s the Shire.
“In Malibu you have terrible traffic, which if you use it correctly is just as good, if not better, than any Zen meditation. We have the Santa Ana winds, which will cause our eyes to swell up and force us to question every major decision that culminated in you being in a place where 80 mph winds are called ‘Tuesday.’”
Perhaps I’m grasping at straws here. I’m sure studying abroad is every bit as incredible as people like to say when they rub it in your face. But for all of us still here, having buyer’s remorse or envy can be a crippling pattern of thought.
So even though I’m using Honey Boo Boo as a coping mechanism against Michelangelo, I do think it is important that we all take advantage of everything Malibu has to offer while we have the chance.
Because, for a southern Ohio guy, this is about exotic as it gets.
