"Mr. President, my readers would like to know why, just before leaving office, you honored the H. B. Fuller Co. with your country's very first Environment and Community Service Award?"

"I was originally going to accept it on my own behalf but environmentalists, human rights activists and crime victims would have asked for my head."

"Surely you know that H. B. Fuller has been making and selling products in Central America long banned in the U.S., products that far exceed federal standards for toxicity: lead-based paints and PCP-based wood preservers -- both known carcinogens -- adhesives and solvents that devour sinuses and lungs, produce hallucinations, cause irreversible brain damage and kidney failure, and ultimately kill. Resistol, for one, has done away with hundreds of Central American street kids; it has maimed thousands of others."

"So have firearms. By the way, have I ever shown you my collection of Israeli assault weapons?"

"I can name fifty other companies that would have qualified for this award. Why did you pick H. B. Fuller?"

"Off the record? I had no choice. See, Walter Kissling, the president and CEO, is a Costa Rican. H. B. Fuller generates about $1.3 billion a year. Over 13% of the company's sales and 27% of their profits are in Latin America, The company wields such power and influence that it can stir commerce, politics and diplomacy in the same incestuous cauldron without ever having to fear charges of collusion. Put yourself in my place: Lars Carlson, president of H. B. Fuller's Costa Rican branch, Kativo, is the brother of the governor of Minnesota --- where H. B. Fuller happens to be headquartered. Tony Anderson, H. B. Fuller's chief executive, was honorary consul of Costa Rica. Granted, this was a political plum I was forced to rescind recently in favor of career diplomats --- um, several of our 'honorary' consuls were found to have less than honorable connections.... Besides, Monica Nagel, H. B. Fuller's legal advisor, was Justice Minister under my predecessor, Rafael Angel Calderon. Another prominent Unity Party member, Roxana Viquez, heads the company's community outreach. H. B. Fuller's political leverage has tripled since Miguel Angel Rodriguez and the other, what's his name, succeeded me. As you can see, my country and H. B. Fuller have had a very strong bond --- pardon the pun...."

"A sticky situation.... Nevertheless, aren't you worried that conferring such honor on H. B. Fuller will give your critics more ammunition, that it might reflect negatively on your administration and on Costa Rica?"

"Look, I had to do something to divert attention from the Banco Anglo debacle, the open-pit mining scandal, credit card scams, ailing airlines, assaults on tourists, child-prostitution, radiation, acid rain, deforestation, violence against women, pollution, chiagas disease, road fatalities, Aerocasillas, mud slides, Nicaraguans, AIDS, potholes, avalanches, earthquakes, chapulines...."

"Mr. President, when Quisling --- I mean Kissling --- accepted the award and claimed that 'as a global company' H. B. Fuller is 'concerned about issues that affect our employees, their communities and the environment everywhere we do business,' didn't you feel that he was laying it on a bit thick?"

"Not in the least. Incidentally, do you like Rachmaninov's Third?"

"Seriously, Mr. President."

"Look, I'm out of office. Don't get me wrong, ex-presidents make great ethicists. Look at Oscar Arias.... Relieved of duty, politically irrelevant, they become sentinels of public virtue. Problem is, there's no money in conscience, no profit in morality. Only crass, fawning loyalty pays in the end. In gratitude, and to ensure that I continue to live in the lifestyle to which I've grown accustomed, H. B. Fuller has offered me a position they know I can handle with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back."

"Not unlike your presidency, wouldn't you say?"

"Sorry?"

"Never mind. What's the position?

"V. P. in charge of health and safety programs, Environment and Community Service Division, Adhesives and Solvents Group. I got the job when I agreed to repeal a law that these troublemakers at Casa Alianza helped enact. Imagine, a statute that makes it illegal to use toxic glue solvents if non-toxic substitutes are available! Restraint of trade if you ask me."

"But, sir, you ratified it."

"I did? I must have been trying to cement good relations with the human rights lobby."

Hard as I tried, the above tête-à-tête never actually took place. Mr. Figueres could not be reached for comment. Long-distance calls requesting a telephone interview were put on interminable hold, rerouted several times and predictably disconnected. Messages were not returned. When I protested, I was told I had no grasp of Costa Rican "etiquette." This alibi immediately inspired Reason No. 11 To Be Proud To Be A Costa Rican (see below for Reasons 1 to 10):

- Having the chutzpah to claim that bad manners are virtues misunderstood by the culturally insensitive.

President Figueres' sycophantic tribute to H. B. Fuller, earned the No. 12 position:

- The temerity to bestow an unwarranted honor upon an undeserving organization for the sole purpose of extracting illegitimate personal gain.

Who needs Switzerland when you can have Costa Rica? After all, when it snows in Costa Rica, it's only cocaine.

1. Can pretend not to have an army while militia armed to the teeth with Israeli weapons trains under US supervision against invisible enemy in the Braulio Carrillo national forest.

2. Can exclaim "Pura Vida" in drunken stupor as house slides down ravine following mild seismic tremor, torrential rain, or as a result of shoddy construction.

3. Can boast of having two ocean coasts, both polluted.

4. Only country with 15 volcanoes, any one of which, should it erupt, will connect both oceans in a matter of seconds.

5. Can give address with precise instructions such as, "200 meters south of the yellow house that sits 50 meters east of the bodega from whose northerly window you can see the fig tree on which Don Asdrubal's dog relieves himself every day at five."

6. Even the idiot son of a great former president can be elected to high office.

7. Can proudly say, "We used to have a railroad!"

8. Can watch hopelessly untalented Ecuadorian nose-flute players perform in Plaza de la Cultura while thief explores your back pocket.

9. Only "ecologically-conscious" nation that has set aside 90% of its rain forest reserves to help impoverished Japanese lumber interests.

10. Country has more potholes than the Moon.

(W. E. Gutman is a journalist and former resident of Costa Rica. Frequently on assignment in Central America, he avoids dark alleys and steers clear of vehicles equipped with tinted windows. More "Reasons To Be Proud" are in the works. Other projects include a brief look at Guatemalan police humor and a very short list of Honduran banks that have not (yet) been hit.)

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