Americans are remarkably law-abiding. The rigid, unconditional obedience to laws and rules is primarily the result of historical development. The country was created out of nothing, the old European order was rejected, and people flocked here in all kinds of ways-it is no secret that among them there were many fugitives from the law, which naturally led to disorder and anarchy, and it was only possible to survive and create a strong state if all the rules were strictly followed.

One famous American journalist describes his hometown in the northern United States this way: clean, quiet, peaceful, people don’t lock their doors and don’t even know exactly where their keys are kept, cars parked in front of stores with their engines running – just a paradise of safety. How, why? – A reader wonders. It’s very simple, the journalist explains. Imagine that someone has stolen a tape recorder from a car and is trying to sell it, but no one will buy it: “I already have one,” the potential buyer will answer and immediately report it to the police. “And the police will come and shoot the criminal on the spot.” “That’s why,” the journalist concludes, “there is no crime in our city. This, of course, is an artistic exaggeration. But, indeed, Americans are terrified of their police. A well-bred elderly professor of a large American university, when stopped on the road by a policeman who wondered why he was driving so slowly (!), was on the verge of fainting with fear as he handed in his documents at the window, his hands shaking. The same professor, a big fan of fishing, told me that every angler must place his license on his back so that it is visible from afar, otherwise “anything can happen” (a firing squad on the spot?).

Common sense arguments, worldly logic, all of this makes no sense when confronted with American laws and regulations. The most famous example here is the paperwork for living or working in the country.

Here is a case in point. A Cuban immigrant could not get a residency permit for several years, the documents he collected were regularly returned by officials as incomplete. The problem was that among the papers must be the fingerprints of both hands, and the hapless potential American had two fingers amputated, which automatically made his documents invalid.

Another life situation that surprises me with its absurdity is the purchase of alcohol. In most states, you can only buy alcoholic beverages when you reach the age of 21. Even disregarding the exaggerated age limit, it should be noted that every seller has the right to ask any buyer for identification and, interestingly, very often does so. Everything is understandable and even correct when it comes to young people. But how does a forty-year-old man feel when he shows a university ID card stating that he is a professor, pictures of his fully grown children, and a host of other papers, none of which, unfortunately for him, contain his date of birth. It is hard to assume that he had falsified all this in order to deceive the store clerk. But under no circumstances, even after summoning the receptionist in anger, would he be able to buy a bottle of wine in this case: the law is the law, no document, no bottle.

The fear of breaking the law is so great that, even when they are far from their homeland, Americans are afraid to deviate from the rules. At the Château d’Auteard in France, a group of American university students were horrified when they were offered cocktails that included local cognac for tasting; they looked at each other, shrugged, wrinkled their shoulders, and never decided to try it.

Irony and jokes with the authorities were inappropriate. One American journalist told of an incident at an airport when, exhausted from a long flight across the ocean, in response to a question and question from a customs official – “Vegetables? Fruit?” he joked: “Yes, two hundred grams of oranges and a pound of cucumbers, please,” and almost ended up in jail.

You have to hand it to the American police: they are remarkably efficient and responsive. If you have just a little suspicion of a disturbance, and you report it, you can be sure that in a minute the police car will be at your house, as if she was waiting around the corner. You don’t have to worry about being reprimanded for making a false call if there is no body, no one has been killed, and your fears were unfounded.

Related to law-abidingness is such a typical phenomenon of American life, as the transfer of information to the authorities, in the Russian version roughly referred to as “stukachestvo. A neighbor informs the police about loud music in his neighbor’s house, and a motorist reports about speeding on the road.