Monday, November 20, 2006

Ten Things To Like about America That You Don't Know About Till You Live Overseas for Some Period, As I Discovered on My Recent Trip to The States.

1. Almost complete absence of dog poop on the streets, so that you can spend time looking at the scenery rather than watching your step.

2. Free, ice-filled tap water brought to your table at most restaurants without having to ask for it or being charged for it.

3. Eye contact and sometimes even some form of greeting (nod, smile) from strangers passing you on the street.

4. Relative lack of bureaucracy. Seriously! (The downside of this is no one hires a company to deal with the bureaucracy on your behalf.)

5. Lots of people speak English, and many misunderstandings and miscommunications are thereby avoided.

6. Tacos. I can't stress this one enough.

7. Mom, baseball and apple pie. Except without the apple pie part. Why are moms so uniquely American, anyway? I'm pretty sure they have them here, too. I've seen women with babies. They might be cyborgs or aliens and not moms, though, as I have been unable to communicate with them. At any rate, I did get in a baseball game while I was there. And my mom gave me a cool Silk Road-themed cookbook, so she's alright, if perhaps not intrinsically American in spirit.

8. Lots of cereal choices.

9. Eight is a lot.

10. Really!

The only two negatives were the enormous number of political advertisements on TV and the fact that I was filled with such goodwill for the American people that I never would have suspected that any of them would have made such foolish choices while driving, and I almost rear-ended people about half a dozen times in the week I was there. And the lack of cheap yet excellent beer.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reasons why Belgium is better than the States:

When you scrape the fecal matter of your shoes at the end of each day, you know it's only dog or cat poop and not from people.

ms said...

I've seen parents direct their kids to pee in the street gutter and on the side of a church (and not, I might add, on the church that has urinals built into the exterior wall), so I can't say with absolute certainty that it is animal excrement.

Anonymous said...

Also, who would feed their dog corn?

Anonymous said...

Corn dog?