Cultural Refinement and the Techno-Colored Nightmare

(This is the first part of a five-part series.)

As most of you know, Scott and I have finally come to the last week of our time here in Eastern Europe, and as we set our sights toward home, we have been debating about how to write the blog’s finale. After throwing around a few half-assed ideas, we have decided to post a top-five list of things we both will and will not miss about leaving Lithuania and returning home to the states. Although there are many smaller things that could make the list (Scott dancing around in his boxers while singing the theme song “Captain Duona”, elderly men cracking open coolers of beer on morning bus and/or boat rides, and unsuspecting ex-pats crunching down on strips of pig ear that have been snuck into long-awaited bowls of soup, to name a few), I will bypass those and focus only on the most major pillars of our Lithuanian journey: both the mythic enjoyments and the irksome annoyances.

Thing We Will Miss #5: The Opportunity to Experience Different Cultures

Since we’ve come to Lithuania, Scott and I have tried hundreds of foods we never would have eaten, traveled to four countries we probably never would have traveled to, heard several languages we never would have heard, and visited countless museums and historical sites that we never would have visited. We have learned, just through casual conversations and a bit of reading, a wealth of Baltic history and the deeply harmful and personal impact of the USSR. We have experienced a different way of being in the world; we have seen a different way of doing life.

Thing We Will Not Miss #5: Certain Aspects of Experiencing Different Cultures

Although Scott and I are deeply grateful for these opportunities and would gladly pay a large amount of money to experience them again, there are some cultural experiences that we, in our ethnocentric snobbery, will not miss. A couple of days ago we were again reminded of this, this time in a particularly intrusive way.

As Scott and I were walking home after LCC’s Graduation, we spotted several lovesick-looking young men and women splayed out over street corners and folded under doorways, caterwauling and strumming their badly-tuned acoustic guitars. Scott hypothesized that, since this was highly unusual in Klaipeda, it must be National Shiftless Musician Day, and since the shiftless musicians were not particularly good, we proceeded home to take an afternoon nap. As we neared our apartment building, we heard a dull, lifeless thumping that grew louder and louder with each step until we finally realized that a shiftless musician of the worst sort, a techno DJ, had set himself up in the square directly underneath our window. And it was loud. I mean loud as in it made our apartment sound like a night club bathroom. Our dreams of an afternoon nap destroyed, we proceeded to do what disappointed people do: we began to indignantly mock our newfound enemy. We noted how he bent over and touched levers and switches without actually adjusting any of them, just to appear, we supposed, responsible for the intricate nuances of the endless bludgeoning. We noted how people kept approaching him and shaking his hand, as if to congratulate him for the carnage he was wreaking on our good taste. Then we started playing “Would You Rather?”, which is always a sign that we are about to get really mean. I think we should swear off “Would you Rather?” altogether, but I fear my family would probably disown me for that.

Scott: “Would you rather have to listen to this music for a whole week without stopping or set the plight of women back 40 years?”
Me: “Well, I’d take one for the team, but it would probably prevent me from doing anything helpful in the future seeing as I would have to live out my days in a psych unit.”

Two more minutes of the dreadful thumping.

Me: “Would you rather listen to this music for a whole week or punch your mother in the face without being able to say why?”
Scott: “Uh…could I write her a letter?”

One more minute.

Scott: “Would you rather have to listen to this music for a whole week without stopping or get diarrhea far from home and lose control of your bowels? In your pants? In public?”

Four more minutes. During this time, the music changed from standard, oatmeal techno to a Neil Diamond ballad accompanied only by a metronomic bass drum. The effect was unbearable.

Me: “Sorry, Scott, but I’d have to shit myself.”

The music ended about thirty minutes later, after we had exhausted our criticisms and tried to drown out Mr. Techno with a combination of broken fan and an episode of “Bang Goes the Theory”. I realized, once again, what a bitchy snob I can be and said a silent prayer for forgiveness. There’s something about aural assault that brings out the worst in me. The same thing happens when there’s a car alarm going off. I have these delicious images of me bashing in the windshield with a baseball bat. But no, it’s not just that. I’m a snob. And so is Scott. And we are working on this. We are, however, looking forward to working on this less as soon as we get back to a place where techno music doesn’t have such a stronghold. I will gladly return to criticizing the tasteless chauvinism of ZZ Top in its place.