I just the other day came across the "ugly American" term. After years of international travel and expatriate living, it took reading posts by other Americans on the internet to find the phrase in question. And question it I do.

Yes, I'm American, but no, I'm not ugly. Well, to be brutally honest, perhaps early mornings could prove a little scary to artistic types. And no, I don't wear loud Hawaiian shirts - well, not every day anyhow - that outfit in Cairo was a mistake, admittedly, but usually I'm much more attuned culturally. As for clapping people heartily on the back and calling them by shortened first names upon introduction, I keep my hands to myself and, as my friends can attest, forget people's names (full, sur or otherwise) instantly.

The only incident that might possibly be construed as really really unattractive was actually one commenced in all innocence and in the spirit of helpfulness and, yea, perhaps a little love. (Well, sheer boredom was a factor too, I suppose.)

You see, here in Polish villages, gnarled elderly women still work the fields even on viciously hot days, filling indestructible synthetic weave bags with potatoes left over by the farmer's harvest. Deciding to set an example of kindness for my toddler to emulate in her teenage years (directed hopefully at me), I interrupted our desultory walk with an offer of assistance.

A withered arm tried to wave me away, but I'd have none of it. I showed Emily the difference between a potato and a rock (after trying to hand off a small boulder to the old crone), and we were pickin' taters! Bending from the waist, then squatting and kneeling (and finally collapsing) into the dry, dusty dirt, scrabbling for spuds, crawling from place to place, was horrid work. And it didn't help that the ancient one was obviously losing her sanity as the sun beat down on us. She never stopped smiling and sometimes cackled loudly, gibbering on and laughing, all the while scouring the land tirelessly. I tried to return her smiles and laughs with those of my own, but somehow sun-burned, cracking lips and a boiling brain made me less than usually sociable.

Filthy face streaked, I finally rose to a nearly upright position and tried a spritely skip over to the witch, miming that it was time for Emily's nap, and wasn't this a pleasant way to spend one's afternoon, and we turned around several times on our way home to see the thing laughing hysterically and waving back to us the whole time.

It was only as Emily and I were mounting the steps of our front porch that I started to cool off: curiously the breeze seemed to be concentrated on one place of my anatomy. It was then that I made the appalling discovery that the entire seat of my pants had split open and was hanging down like an old-fashioned baby's flap.

It will of course never be ascertained whether it was the heat or the shock (or the excessive guffawing at the ugly American), but the old one passed in the night. I, on the other hand, have thrown out my Homer Simpson lingerie.