I've Been Pyramidedededed!

All week, my good friend Victor's been pestering me about a woman who wants to meet me. No sweat, I assured him, figuring that she either just wanted to meet a real live American, had some weird document she wanted me to proofread, or potentially even a beautiful daughter to pawn off on me.

And today we finally arranged to meet this gal, a friend of his mother's, and Victor was set to do the translating. She showed up and we shook hands, she looked like a normal 50-ish year-old Hungarian woman. Most of them, though, don't carry a little tote-bag with them.

The way that Victor translated the very first sentence, I sensed we were in trouble. "Have you got 15 or 20 minutes?" I didn't answer, but curled my eyebrows.

She whipped out a set of laminated posters, and suddenly it made sense. Aha, these must be visual aids I could use in the classroom! But she plowed through that assumption when she began to talk for three minutes straight in Hungarian. Quixtar this, Amway that. She paused with a smile, to give Victor space to translate. Victor looked at me. "I am not going to translate this all for you," he said, apologetically. We both feared what was coming. I nodded, "We don't even have to stay, dude, unless you want me to be polite." He did, unfortunately.

She blabbed on and on, detailing in wonderful pictorial form the intricacies of a pyramid scheme. Except this one pays the bottom rung first, she said with great pride, believing every word of what she was saying, no doubt. She went on and on and on with her description. During the translation, Victor and I discussed the Super Bowl.

My first instinct was to sit back, shake my head and wonder "Why me?"

The second was to shake her hand, smile, and run. Fast.

The third was to look up Amway and Quixtar on the Internet.

Turns out Amway isn't a pyramid scheme, at least according to a split Supreme Court decision. The higher-ups make money mostly by selling recommended "how-to" material to the lower-downs. They then proceed to spend that money to support ultra-evangelical and Republican schemes...sweet. This dumbo Hungarian woman who wants cheaper shampoo and a bit of side-income is propping up Bush and Cheney. Awesome...