Native Country of Cleanliness (Switzerland & Austria)
Switzerland was walking down the street with Austria when he saw it: One of the citizens of St Gall was about to dump a black rubbish bag on the street.
A black rubbish bag.
Switzerland swiftly walked up to the man, not caring if Austria could keep up with him.
'Excuse me', he said, 'could you be so kind as to explain to me why you are carrying with you a rubbish bag which is not green and to which the fee stamp is not affixed as required? You are without any doubt aware of the fact that this kind of misbehaviour is to be severely fined.'
The man seemed to feel very embarrassed, apologised a thousand times and asserted it would never happen again.
Switzerland frowned when he saw the amused expression on Austria's face.
'What?', he said defiantly. 'The most beautiful thing is to have a spotlessly clean street. Is there anything wrong with that?'
Austria genteelly lifted a hand in order to hide the grin on his face. 'Of course not' he said, trying to keep the chuckle out of his voice. 'Tüpflischisser.'
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Notes:
There are actually people employed by the city of St Gall to 'patrol' the streets in search of unlawfully deposited rubbish. I just saw that on TV and immediately wanted to write a story about it.
The title is a nod to Hungarian-born Israeli satirist Ephraim Kishon's (1924-2005) stories about Switzerland.
'Tüpflischisser' is Swiss German for 'nitpicker'.