Dear Czech Blogosphere, I'm writing to you from a place that makes me want to vomit.

Yes, that's right...hurl!

Allow me to describe to you where I'm located. I'm surrounded by boundless consumerism, advertising a-plenty, and people who are so inundated by infinite choice that they don't know where their head begins and their tail ends; and -- ahem -- that's putting it midly.

So sad, oh so very sad.

How does a garden variety Golden City Denizen regulate the 1000-channel universe, the endless array of clothing stores, the confusing mobile phone plans -- so detailed and deceptive that it afflicts you with a permanent case of vertigo -- and the eventual 3 euro bus fare?

And no, posluchaci, in case you're guessing, I ain't in Hong Kong.

There was a point to all of this, I think...

Oh yeah -- I ask the question: once we let the cat out of the bag, can we stuff it back in?

Once we open up our markets to unfettered trade, seventy-five brands of breakfast cereal and twenty-eight varieties of cleansing cream, is there an end in sight? Has anyone even considered this? Mr. Topolanek, have you? Holy ODS gurus? President Klaus and his Kissing RepubIican cousins?

Well I certainly have...

I think I speak for plenty of expats in Prague who came to this City of Fear and Fantasy for an ironclad purpose.

Some came for love, others for passionate conquest of other kind. Some came because they were running away from free enterprise run amok. I even know some who sought solace from the war games Dubyah's "administration" seems to enjoy playing.

Still others still found themselves here accidentally...passing through, in other words, and finally deciding that this was a swell place where they could hang their hat and call home.

Like we say back where I come from -- thirty-one flavours, baby. Thirty-one flavours.

Prague's so gorgeous, she sometimes makes me want to gnash my knuckles, nail my hands to a piece of wood, and bear the elements screaming to the high heavens in rapture (there's an image there, fer ya, hey?), but lately she's been getting too sickly sweet. Lately, I've been getting a major case of cavities.

My dear friends, denizens of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia...I fear for you, for me, for us.

First you.

Yes I'm talking about you, Fellow Citizens. You, like the very best in Mexican lightweights, who have been so quintessentially capable of slipping the twin punches of tyranny and oppression. Bobbing and weaving your way through the ravages of European history for the past five centuries and then some, passively accepting the sorry fate of occupation, letting the invaders unfurl their dastardly plans, ultimately for naught -- vubec -- because ultimately we -- we Czechs, Slovaks, and Czechoslovaks -- are at the end of the day stronger than they. The blood of a man named John and his merry band of Hussite zealots trumps imperialist evil any day of the week.

But this present round of squatting seems as though it's here to stay.

The Money Huns are once again at the gates, scrambling like chickens without their heads through our city, spreading their vile influence all over the show, and once again we're powerless to resist them. Try as we might, the more stridently we resist them, the mightier they become.

They've been feeding us those consumerist carrots like manna, and we've been gobbling them up like kids at Tuzex. Somehow we can't seem to get enough of the booty, that goose that lays them golden eggs.

Then me.

Part of what I dig about Prague, the Czech Republic, and even scrappy little Slovakia is the innocence which their metropolitan areas still retain. Prague -- that city straddling the Vltava, beloved apple of my eye, warm centre of my love, my heart -- is the consummate "small town playing big," and that's exactly the way I/we expats like it. I think I speak for plenty of non-Czech Czechs who turned tail on all that shallow crap from back across the Pond. Crap like what happened to me here today when I waltzed into an electronics shop in the mall.

I needed an adapter. The clerk lead me to the wall of accessories, then tried to put the retail hustle 'n flow on me. "Did you need anything else? Is there anything else I can get for you?"

Me: "No, thank you. I think this [pointing to the adapter] is fine."
Clerk: "Are you sure? You wouldn't be interested in this [pointing to a more expensive adapter that I really didn't need], would you?"
Me: "No thanks."
Clerk: "Wait, but this particular one doesn't convert the current as well as--"
Me: "Hey man, can I just pay for this and go?"

Do you see where I'm heading with this?

This isn't happening yet in Prague, but we're on a damn fine roll. Do you think ten million consumers can dictate the pace of economic progress in Europe? Do you think we can live in our glorious bubble of splendid isolation like we seem to be doing these days, oblivious to the pace of change which is overwhelming the rest of the planet's financial meccas?

Nah. I doubt it.

Me? I just hope when the juggernaut rolls all over us here (if it hasn't already), that we don't lose those quaint little things we non-Czech Czechs had once come to know and majorly dig about this sweet little bull's-eye of a nation-state at the heart of Europe.

And lastly, there's us.

I worry about us because I've been seeing the signs.

I think I speak for plenty of expatriates who don't want you to become anything like us. We don't want you to lose that wonderful thing which makes you so endearing to us. That part of your personality which isn't suspicious and loathing and which questions every single motive of someone you may meet on the street or who might approach you in a shop. Who doesn't have a problem with personal space, and who is so "liberated" and "free" that they don't know where all of this tomfoolery began.

It's that beautiful innocence we don't want you to misplace in your mad stampede to adopt the best of what the First World is foisting off on you. In that exuberance to obliterate every last trace of the Bad Old Days where you only had one brand of milk, one holiday option (beach vacations in Varna, Bulgaria), and one option on the old ballot card.

So now my plaintive request: PLEASE don't become like us!

Whatever you do, avoid it at all costs. Go to a 12-step program. Overdose on Britney Spears YouTube videos. Stare at yourself in the mirror and repeat "Have a nice day!" a thousand times until you, too, hurl.

But -- by Jove -- do not become like us.

You're too good to waste.