Old English

I finally met our other neighbor across the street, an old English chap named Ian, a few days ago. I already knew he was English because the other neighbor, Chip, told me, but I didn't want to bring it up and be like, "where abouts in England are you from?" Primarily because you don't want to end a sentence with a preposition, but also because I didn't want him to retort, "I'm from Wales you fucking wanker!"

So after we made small talk for a few minutes I said, "so, I take it you're not from around here…" implying that his accent was neither American nor southern, though I suppose it could have been southern English but again, it also could have been southern Welsh. You just can’t know.

He replied, "No, I'm not. I moved to the States about 23 years ago." That didn't help me out me out one bit because ultimately I wanted to find out what English soccer team he supported and I couldn't do that until he admitted he was English!

So I followed up with, “So where were you from originally?" to which he replied, "England," with a look that suggested, "England you stupid wanker. Where'd you think I'm from? Wales?"

Having finally established his country of origin, I followed immediately with, "oh really? Do you stay up on the English Premier League pretty closely?" with fingers crossed that 1. He is a die-hard Liverpool fan and has the team emblem tattooed on his chest, back or ass; 2. He supports Manchester United, which I’m ok with, and he might as well be on that bandwagon; 3. He follows some other team that preferably loses to Liverpool routinely, like Manchester United; 4. And most of all, he isn’t a Chelsea fan, which is basically the same as having an English accent and loving Criss Angel, Mindfreak.

He replied, "not really."

Not really!?! You're English, you stupid wanker! Soccer is a religion to you people!

I couldn’t possibly have anticipated that response and seriously couldn’t comprehend it. I mean, what are the chances, right? I move to Nashville, TN and my neighbor is a bloody Englishman and I'm thinking I hit the futbol lottery. He probably has a massive satellite dish in his backyard beaming every soccer game known to man right into his living room where he has a keg of Guinness, liters of tea and bushels of crumpets. But no, in reality he's the only Englishman born in the land of the Queen that doesn't watch soccer. Bollocks!

So now my only goal is to show this guy I’m more of an Englishman than he is. I’m going to start by doing all my yard work in a beefeater outfit, listening to the Beatles and quoting Shakespeare. Bollocks!