The War on Poverty

About a month ago I wrote about how hilarious it was that Switzerland had still not made a decision on my residence permit (see below). Back in those days, there was something harmless and droll about all this bureaucratic fumbling, something that made you want to turn your eyes heavenward and sigh, “oh those charmingly incompetent European functionaries! Whatever will they do next!”

Well, what they did do next was to reject my residence application, and only now do I see these befuddled government workers for the ice-cold Gestapo auxiliaries they really are. Not unlike my noble Mexican forbearers, I am being denied access to a land of freedom and opportunity and sizeable gold reserves. And why? Because, after six months of deliberation, I have been deemed too damned poor. And Switzerland, God bless her, is cleanin’ out the shantytowns.

Incidentally, by “poor”, they mean that my concubine and I lack assets sufficient to support me in Switzerland for a period of five years – well over a hundred thousand dollars by their calculations. The fact that I will not even be staying five more weeks in their jewelry shop of a country seems not to add a penny’s weight to my cause.

I’m going to go argue my case with the Police Étrangère next week. As I see it, the meeting is going to have a lot in common with an English aristocrat’s dinner party or a rapper’s life, insofar as its entire purpose will be for me to exhibit my wealth as flagrantly as I can. And if the Pol-Éts aren’t all agape when I light a cigarette with a fifty franc note, and then put it out by dousing it with 1979 Dom Pérignon? Well, then I can hardly imagine wanting to live here anyway.