I could write volumes on all the things that feel weird since moving back to the U.S., and I don’t mean weird in a bad way, I mean weird like when you go to your 20th high school reunion and people are the same but different, and you can’t really tell if they seem so different to you because they really are different, or because you are different, or what balance of the two is going on but it’s all really weird and different. And also you forget how to write coherent sentences. Anyway here are some examples.
— American parking spaces are HUGE. It is a marvel to be able to open even a smallish sedan car door all the way, and to be able to actually exit a vehicle without doing yoga. Even more bizarre is my passenger being able to do the same. Rupert and I had a tiny 4-door sports sedan, I mean it’s not as though that thing’s doors were five feet long like some 70s cruiser, but still, half the time we’d stop before pulling all the way into a spot so that the passenger (me) could get out. Please note that I am 5’3″ and not large of girth, and Rupert is also not a big person, and even so, when that car was parked, we could rarely both get out of it without contortions, grunts, and grave damage to everything around us. The spaces are tiny compared to here.
And Italy has such a laid-back ethos so that if your car there does not have at least eleven square feet of severe to catastrophic cosmetic damage, then everyone knows you never, ever drive it or park it in the city. Or the country. I’m only barely exaggerating. If you ever go to Italy, make a point to look at every car you see parked along the streets. I shit you not, eight of ten have the kind of scratches and dents that would make most of you reading this flip your lid. My Italian friends said there was little point in repairing such wounds, because they’d quickly be replaced by fresh ones. We discovered this to be quite true. And the truth is that it was fantastically liberating to just stop worrying about it.
— Customer service has become better. According to me. I’ve been back long enough so that the shock and awe of being greeted with a smile and asked if I need help has worn off, but still, it just seems like there’s a lot more effort (in general) to make the customer happy than there was 5 years ago. Am I wrong? Is my calibration off because I was in Europe too long and got rejected too many times when I tried to smile and make small talk? Are my emotional scars doing my thinking for me? Am I still freaking out that I can speak my own language to everyone and it makes them seem more awesome than they really are?
— American shopping carts don’t roll sideways. THEY NEED TO. When we first moved to England, I was baffled by the wacky side-rolling “trolleys”. It made no sense, they slipped and slid all pell-mell. Then I realized the point is that you can move them out of the way, in any direction, super easily. Which is helpful in the kind of population density you have there, with aisles that aren’t 10 feet wide like at Target. Italian carts do the same. I got used to it. Now I find myself awkwardly trying to drag my Target cart to the side when I need to get out of someone’s way and it not only doesn’t move, it makes an awful sound and once last week I even kinda fell over onto a chips-n-salsa display in my failed sideways-evasion effort. Not embarrassing at all.
— American shopping carts are also startlingly gigantic. My god, people. Just my god. I know I have been raving about All The Things that I can now buy in one place, and the glorious large-sized containers I can now get, but still, even the average-sized regular grocery store has carts the size of the average Fiat in Turin, and frankly they’re hard to push. Especially because they don’t roll sideways.
— Everything is a trial-period deal now. Things that weren’t before. Today I started working on getting electricity, gas, TV, internet, etc set up for our new house that we close on next Friday, and what in the hell? The electric company now has “deals”? This low rate for 6 months or this one for 12 months, do it do it do it and please don’t read the fine print where we tell you that rate will double the millisecond after your months are up. I realize fully that lots of companies have had “deals” like that for a very long time – I was just surprised to see it with the electric company, and the gas company, and every single other company I’ve contacted. It’s universal now and it wasn’t 5 years ago. I notice this because it annoys me. Do they really wonder why the housing collapse happened? It was this shit, except with mortgages. It isn’t a deal. You’re gonna pay in full one way or another.
— CORN TORTILLAS. My preciousssss. Oh how I have missed you. My friend Vivian this morning about a dish involving corn tortillas and I haven’t stopped foaming at the mouth since I read it.
— Everything is in Spanish (in Dallas/Fort Worth, at least). A lot of stuff was in Spanish when I left in 2009 but now it’s pretty much ubiquitous. And it doesn’t bother me at all, because now I know what it feels like to live in a country whose language is not my native one, and now I know that it’s really, very, intensely difficult to learn a new language to the point of comfort with it, even when you have tons of leisure time and financial resources to devote yourself to the effort, which most immigrants don’t have. I’m going to write an entire opus about this one day soon because the issue is now personal and I’m on a mission to spread some patience and understanding about it. But still – it’s weird to see this much more Spanish only a few years later, but not to actually hear that many more Spanish speakers around me. In fact I hardly ever hear it spoken at all, which actually makes me sad because my comprehension of it is a hundred times better now than it was before I learned Italian.
— People ask me if I learned Italian, and I say yes, but not one soul has ever asked me to speak a single word of it.* Is it weird that I think that’s weird? Am I weird that I always ask someone who speaks another language to say something in that language, to teach me a word or two? It’s not just that I want to show off a little (I have very little to show off about, I take what I can get, and it won’t last long because I’m already forgetting a lot of my Italian), it’s that the total lack of curiosity or interest in what they all say is the most beautiful language sincerely surprises me.
*Except my mom, when she wondered if Primo would respond better to my coaxing in the pool if I did it in Italian. I tried, and he did not respond more proactively. He did cock his head adorably, though.
— There are cops lurking on the side of the road, trying to catch you speeding. I had straight-up forgotten about that because that doesn’t happen in the UK or Italy. All their profit-mongering via speeding tickets comes from cameras and sensors; no personal contact necessary. This is both good and bad. On the one hand, over there you may get a ticket but you will not be detained in the process. You won’t miss your flight because of that cop pulling you over and taking his sweet ass time giving you your stupid dang ticket. But, it’s easy to forget about all those cameras, and you might speed your way all over the country, unfettered, and then one day the post comes and you have 47 speeding tickets.
But that bit, the actual ticket-paying, isn’t what is weird; it happens everywhere. Probably even more in Europe than here because those speed cameras are everywhere and they are accurate. What is catching me off-guard back here in the States is the cops themselves. Sitting there on the side of the road, actively and personally trying to ruin the day of the people who pay their salaries, the people who’d much rather have the cops dealing with serious crime than with Uncle Fred going 74 in that 65. I know it’s their job, and I hate people who drive so fast and carelessly that they cause accidents, but damn. It’s just rubbing me the wrong way, even though it never really did before.
I’m not sure why. I think maybe it’s because I expect better of America, both in that I wish the cops would get out of the traffic ticket business but also because, seriously, why do we not have the camera technology instead? You’re gonna get tickets either way – wouldn’t you rather not have to be pulled over and questioned by Officer Copster when you’re in a hurry? Not to mention how it actually, ironically, fucks up traffic because everyone slows down and gives the pull-over a wide berth and just come on people. There has to be a better way.
— Our date-writing system. It took me so long to break the habit of writing 09/04/13, for example, for today’s date. I still never liked the total switch and took to writing it as 04 Sept 13, military style. You have to admit the European and military methods make more sense with the smallest-to-largest unit system. Day, month, year, bam.
Anyway, I don’t really care which system we use but it’s a ripe banana of confusion when I have to use records from there, here. Such as yesterday when I took Primo to his first American veterinarian visit and all his paperwork and vaccination history is dated euro-style so they thought he had his last round of vaccinations on February 10, 2012 (and therefore way overdue for boosters) because it said 02/10/12. Something similarly clusterfucky happened once with a visa entry stamp of something like 04/12/11, which is December 4th, not April 12th, and oh my god it causes hurts in all the brains, especially mine.
— Also, pound-versus-kilogram. I understand the metric system’s beauty and intuitively-logical superiority but in this case I still prefer the pound so this is not a complaint. BUT. I was over there for many years. I had to learn metric. I had to stop thinking in pounds and ounces and feet and inches. And therefore now I am asked at the vet how much Primo weighs and I say “12 kilograms”, or I’m asked at Best Buy what length of iPod adapter cable I need for my car and I say “15 centimeters should be enough”, and they give me the side-eye and I get embarrassed because I think they think I’m being pretentious but I swear to god I am not. I had to internalize that shit when I moved so that the people there wouldn’t give me the side-eye and think I was being pretentious. Now I’m un-learning it and I’m not very smart so it’s slow-going.
Hey, maybe later I’ll make make a First-World Problems poster out of this shit, yeah?
It’s all I have for now anyway. Once again I want to write poetry and plays and novels about how happy I am to be back on home soil but I am too lazy for any of that so I’ll stop now and go get in the pool with Primo so I can keep trying and failing to teach him to swim with his mouth above the water. Above it, buddy. I swear he is going to murder himself with the dramatically excessive water-swallowing. He’s a lot like me, by which I mean he’s a relatively good-natured but slow-witted individual.
Ikea here in the States has those omni-directional shopping carts. Don’t try to operate one in flip flops. You need the friction and full support of shoes to keep from breaking your ankles when trying to change directions.
Face it, Rachel, you’re pretentious. They’ve got you coming and going.
OK, I get it; the metric system is rational and well-organized, which is why it’s used in science. But traditional foot/ounce/bushel-type measurements were traditional for a reason. They made sense to people in their everyday lives.
Hi Rachel, In California, the judges struck down the traffic ticket cameras because California laws require that a peace officer affirm under oath that he observed the violation. Further, all persons cited have a right to trial of the citation in court. The peace officer who signed the citation and affirmed under oath that he observed the violation must be available for cross examination under oath. If the officer does not appear for the trial, the citation must be dismissed. A lawyer took a camera issued citation to trial and claimed that his due process rights under California law were violated because the citation had not been sworn to by a peace officer and that the lawyer was deprived of his right to cross examination and thus a fair trial. The judge not only agreed with him but ordered that the cameras be shut down because they violated the defendant’s right to a fair trial. I don’t know about Texas or other states, but that’s what happened in California.
Maybe the parking places are just bigger in Texas because of the Suburbans. It can be a bit challenging for me to fit the 4-door truck into a grocery store parking place (my usual ride is an F150 but when I have the three grandkids along, I need more room for car seats). Since I’m 5’9″, I don’t think I want to go to Italy and try to get out of a parked car.
I know some Russian and some French (from college, mumble-mumble years ago), but, come to think of it, I never get asked to say anything in those languages when friends or acquaintances find out about my (not great) skillz. Wee-urd.
I work a lot with europeans and worked in Germany for a while as well. I prefer the european and american military date conventions. Here’s how I keep them straight.
European: 4.9.13 or (at least in Germany they use a period as the separator. Can’t say what the rest of Europe uses)
American: 9/4/13 like everyone else does.
For just me: This is what I use for dates that will only be seen by me (dash separator). I often embed the date in file names on the computer. With this convention the files automatically are in chronological order in a file listing.
If I have to write it out I always use 04 Sept, 2013. Everyone understands what that means.
I also write time in 24 hr format.
Yes, I am a hopeless geek. I’ve learned to live with it.
DaleB
The shopping carts have to be gigantic. Imagine how long it’d take to fill up the giant refrigeration and enormous cabinets in the huge kitchen if they were little.
Think of the ticket writing cops as a feature not a bug. Fosters a healthy disrespect for authority figures.
@rickl: To be properly pretentious she’d have to say he weighs 118 newtons. Hickbilly europeans, thinking kilograms are a unit of weight.
My parents move around a lot. A new town every couple years. Of all the places they lived TX parking spots were noticeably bigger.
I don’t have a problem with companies accommodating Spanish speakers because they’re private institutions that should be able to do business how they please. But I have a big problem when the government does it and taxpayers foot the bill.
@Richard is right. A lot of states no longer use traffic cameras because of all the lawsuits. That pesky 6th Amendment, and all that.
BTW, Rachel, if the large grocery carts are startling, you might want to ease yourself into a Costco visit.
Rachel, I’ve got to disagree with you on the carts. I don’t recall seeing them in Siciliy when my wife and I lived there, but learned to hate them during the 3 years in Cyprus and last 8 years here in Dubai. Every time I go to the grocery store, whether it be Carrefour or Spinneys or Geant, I want to break out a welder and lock down the rear wheels. Not only are they impossible to maneuver when you’re not wearing the proper footwear, but extremely difficult if the cart is loaded down with any significant weight. Since I usually buy a lot of soda when I go to the store, I find myself man-handling the cart for simple maneuvers. Maybe that’s why the carts are so small? To keep the weight down?
I know why the wheels are independent, though…or at least one reason. Here in Dubai, the big malls have grocery cart escalators. The cart wheels are slotted in such a way that when you push it on the escalator, the exterior portions of the wheels (which are the only parts that rotate) drop into the escalator floor slots, allowing the non-rotating portion of the wheel to sit on the escalator floor. This, along with little rubber brakes, keeping the cart from rolling forward or backward during the ascent/descent on the escalator. Without all four wheels being independent, this would be more difficult to implement.
Thanks again for the posts on your readjustment to America. Since my wife and I are facing this possibility, I’m glad to hear the positives.
Oooh. I hate those kind of shopping carts. Of course I’ve only encountered them at Ikea, and there really is no such thing as a short trip to Ikea, so maybe it’s just that I’m tired in general by the time I’m done there, but keeping those multi-directional-rolling shopping carts from veering sideways into other shoppers and/or displays while I’m trying to move forwards wears me out. Keeping it from rolling at a 45 degree angle from my intended path uses different muscles, I suppose.
And hell! I completely forgot about the shopping carts when I promised to take my monkey child to Ikea this weekend to get him a desk. Uuuuuuuugggghhhhh… The child looooooooooves to push shopping carts. Adores it. Revels in it. Every parent hates having a kid throw a tantrum in a store; in our family we have had very few meltdowns (<5 in his 7 years, I'd say) over whether or not to buy candy or toys while at a store, but there have been many fights over whether or not we will use a shopping cart at all (apparently in Monkey Land all trips to the store require carts – carrying the one item you need in your hands just is not done), and then over who gets to push it.
As his height and strength improve so has his skill at controlling shopping carts, but I’d still say (out of his hearing) that he’s lousy at it. He seldom bonks into shelves anymore, but worrying about him bumping into another shopper keeps me nervous. And vigilant. He’s never actually run into anybody, but there are times when it’s just easier to wait until he goes to bed to run up to the store to get some more milk.
So thanks for reminding me about the Ikea carts, Rachel. He and I will have to have a little talk before we go about how he will not be allowed to push any carts we may use.
Hmm. The preview of this comment does not look like what I have actually typed – a whole chunk is missing. I hope this turns out to say what I intend it to say when it posts.
Yay! It did. :)
C’mon, people, four digit years, ohpleasohpleaseohplease! so it sorts correctly even with stuff from 1996, and you know if you horde corn tortillas, you probably also horde old computer files—I’m just sayin’. (And it’s year-month-day, which is big to small, to boot.)
As to customer service, it’s because the overqualified-candidate-to-jobs-available ratio is incredibly high right now. You can thank Our Economic Savior for that one.
@Jenn, our local BJs just got shopping carts so wide that two won’t fit side-by-side through the front double sliding doors. No kidding. Yeah, she’ll want to ease into that one, for sure, especially since dancing with the cart is required when two of you try to go through from opposite directions at the same time.
@Rachel, I remember parking the rented Mercedes-Benz C2something—a nice small four door that my company had rented for me because I had specifically requested an automatic transmission in hopes of (1) getting a semi-luxury car (check!) and (2) not having to worry about shifting with my left hand and deal with traffic circles (those are WONDERFUL and we need more of them!) all at the same time (check check!)—in the parking lot at Rolls-Royce in Derby. The employee parking lot had spaces carved out of spaces, quite literally, so that the various flavors of microcar could park in them, and those of us who were fortunate enough to have full-sized (for England) vehicles were the unfortunate bastards after all.
The metric system, to me, is another example of distrust of authority. It was imposed from above by a lot of people who were COMMUNISTS! before Marx. (OK, so the English system was imposed from above, too. But that was a really long time ago, so that doesn’t count. So there!)
I refuse to accept that any form of surveillance by the state is acceptable in a free country. Period. End of discussion. Free people just say no to CCTV. That especially includes red light and speed cameras. Never saw a system yet that wasn’t corrupt, almost immediately upon being instantiated.
On speaking Italian: My mind went to the place where John Cleese was wooing Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda.
M
Rachel, their have been a couple of attempts in TX by the legislature to outlaw red light cameras, but so far they haven’t passed. It passed the Texas house overwhelmingly a few years ago, but the Senate never voted on it. A couple of cities including Houston have gotten rid of them.
I am opposed to traffic camera fines since municipalities don’t give a damn when they screw up and send them to the wrong person. I had a friend who got a red light camera ticket that occurred a few weeks after he had sold his car and had the paperwork to prove it wasn’t him. They didn’t care and demanded he pay up. And he is by far the only one who has proof it wasn’t him or that they didn’t actually break the law and the government doesn’t care and good luck getting the person who falsely claimed to a court that you broke the law punished. And they give them out for slow rolling right turns when there is no traffic and no one is put in any danger. That is just money grubbing.
“but not one soul has ever asked me to speak a single word of it”
What? Not even to ask how do you say tit or ass?
Weird!
I’m hoping the parking spaces are still normal size when I get my ’71 Challenger back on the road. Talk about long doors… and yeah if someone dings it there _will_ be repercussions. Here in the environs about shitcago all the parking spaces have been reduced over time, in order to increase revenue (one more parking meter per block, one more metered space in a row, etc).
Customer service? Hi, I’m happy to still have a job and I’d like to keep it, so I’m not going to give you, our delightful customer, _any_ reason to complain to my boss about me! :)
Some parts of the country have alternative power providers/brokers that promise lower rates; her ein ill-annoy we get radio commercials all the time. Your trial periods and discounts may be the company you are working with ‘competing’ to some extent.
I’m on the other side of the language issue; my Mom came from Paraguay, knowing almost no English. Her older brothers had come here (legally), got jobs, worked their asses off, and got the rest of their family here (legally) and after the greetings everyone was told (in no uncertain terms) that ONLY English was to be spoken at meals, or out in public; Spanish was for later conversation (until proper schooling was achieved) then it would be all English all the time. And they learned; even Grandma and Grandpa learned enough to get by; they considered it their responsibility to their new country (and they all became citizens).
There’s a point to providing the most basic survival-necessary translations. Altogether another to put dual signage on everything, make Americans go through ‘select a language’ push buttons or voice menus before proceding to the task or conversation at hand. It should be like welfare; a safety net that helps you get on your feet, not a hammock that makes it OK for you to never make the effort. I would consider it a personal obligation to learn the primary language of a country I was moving to, at least enough to get along.
Cops in ambush? Major revenue enhancement there. That is the primary reason; it sure isn’t safety. If safety was the goal you’d just have very clearly marked police cruisers driving along at the speed limit in all the problem areas. See how many people pass them…
And again, welcome back!
Actually, Dallas has done away with both. They don’t do traffic enforcement anymore. They’ll still stop you if they see you doing something egregious, but they don’t do speed traps. It’s the surrounding cities (and State Troopers) doing it around here. I don’t think it is a coincidence that our crime rates have fallen faster than the other cities. There’s more cops on the beat, and more importantly, like you say, the average citizen sees the cops as less of an enemy now.
Actually, that’s a new state law. If you don’t get over a lane or slow down to 45, they’ll drop the ticket they are writing and come chase you to give you the BIG one.
I was in Ikea over the weekend and wondered WHY the carts are so wonky……now I know. (slaps forehead)
You are doing a great service to those (me) who have never traveled outside the US, Rachel. Who would have thought European shopping carts would be engineered differently than those in ‘Murrica?
@Bill Eccles: C’mon, people, four digit years, ohpleasohpleaseohplease! so it sorts correctly even with stuff from 1996.
YES YES YES. YYYY-MM-DD. All of the computer systems are doing it.
But I also write 04 Sep 2013 because I like it.
It’s foolish to use a two-digit year until after 2032, because could be just about anything. I love encountering 04/03/07 and having no earthly way to know what it means.
Also, the Germans do 05 IX 13 so that at least the month is clear.
4-digit year, 3-letter month, 1 or 2-digit day.
Doesn’t matter what order you put them in, it’s always clear:
5-Sep-2013
Sep-5-2013
2013-Sep-5 (for those visits to Ikea).
I used the yyyymmdd form for saving computer files for so long that I’d prefer it if everyone would do the same. You have no idea how hard it can be to get people to save things in that manner. I always explain that it makes all the files chronological, but they just don’t get it.
Of course, I’ve got my car on military time too.
PS – thanks for the link Rachel! :D
@Bill Eccles:
Yes indeed. I noticed this one a good 20 years ago or so, but I called it the “waitress-hotness-to-unemployment ratio.”
On a separate note, I noticed that Target and shopping carts were both mentioned, but not together. Maybe they’re not everywhere, but our Target has the absolute Cadillac of shopping carts (as opposed to the Ford Fiestas of the grocery store or the dump truck carts of Costco, I guess.) They’re big but maneuverable and I have yet to find one with a wobbly or stubborn wheel. They’re quiet, too. I like pushing them around even when I really just need the hand tote.
Rachel, 5 years ago Congress had finally succeeded in collapsing the housing market. Smart stores (and employees) wised up to the fact that with less money being spent it might be wise to do their best to keep the customers they already had. There was a fairly sudden and dramatic shift in the customer service of many establishments at the time: You didn’t need to go away for 5 years and then come back to suddenly notice the change.
He’s a lot like me, by which I mean he’s a relatively good-natured but slow-witted individual.
No way! We, your loyal readers, would not be loyal readers were that the case. The slow-witted part, I mean.
I can’t cope with the date thing, but I do use the 24-hour clock whenever I can. My watch is set that way, my phone, my PCs/tablet, my clock radios, the radio-controlled clocks. There’s just no way to confuse 0715 and 1915.
I wish we had the 4-way carts here in the grocery stores. My solution is to push the front of the cart toward the shelf, then lift the back end and swing it sideways. Of course, if they stopped filling the aisles with stacks of crap, it wouldn’t be so hard to maneuver around the other shoppers.
And for parking spaces, that was one of the things that sold me on Costco over Sam’s: Costco had bigger spaces, and they’re double-striped to give you an extra margin of safety.
That or parking violation of the “expired parking ticket” variety. Good luck getting them somebody to care when some idiot parks on the corner, blocking one’s visual from oncoming traffic.
Once Luca came speeding down a street several km over the limit and saw the vigili urbani setting up the speed detecting device – fortunately for him, they weren’t done yet, so even though he was clearly over the limit, they couldn’t do anything about it.
They were pretty miffed about it, too
I too like the yyyy mm dd format for the reason’s given above. Makes much more sense on a computer when there’s a big folder with lots of files. In fact, in my work with revising various documents yyyy mm dd hhmm where the time is used in 24 hour military time works great and avoids LOTS of confusion as compared to rev. 1, rev. 2, etc.
Eriko, when I moved out here to Dallas, a friend called ’em “Texas parking spots,” and I have to agree. Then again, it’s really nice if you have a big truck or minivan.
About the time Rachel left the US, Dallas turned off about half the red-light cameras, because they were too successful, and revenue dropped off dramatically, far more than expected.
He did cock his head adorably, though. : translation: whats my human speaking in the old language?
Also, New Orleans has the same damage per car that the residents have learned to ignore.
@JimW: that would be “nice tits” and “beautiful ass” that we need to know in Italian.
On better customer service: … “Smart stores (and employees) wised up to the fact that with less money being spent it might be wise to do their best to keep the customers they already had. There was a fairly sudden and dramatic shift in the customer service of many establishments at the time:”
It’s been a mix, in my experience. Several “Smart stores” seem torn — embracing conflicting ways to save money & hold on to customers by such orthogonal methods of more friendliness as you enter the store, but fewer employees to help you when lost/confused. Also lately I’ve found: Next-to-NO-help when you need a real “can-do” person working at a check-out register. In Texas, Randalls now has way too few open registers and more ill-designed self-service check-out machines, which make for lines of angry customers. Oy. I’m told that if I go during rush hour, things are better … due to more open human-run checkout lines. Oh! Yeah I’ll get right over!!
Yeah, American parking spaces are huge, UNLESS you’re in Arlington, VA where you would have to be a world class contortionist to maneuver yourself out of a Smart Car in the parking lot of Ballston Mall. :) It’s Europe all over again there, which is why they keep electing politicians who like Europe’s Keynesian economics.
First World Problems oh how I hate that phrase! It’s so belittling and judgmental and disapproving…..
I lost a chicken to something a mundane as age and it got to me……. Someone used that expression in response and it just made me lose it!
Now, I realize I don’t rely on my small flock for sustenance and yeah, I can Easily buy another chicken but dammit, I raised the one that died and I don’t know why it died and I didn’t know if the cause would spread to the others… So to read “….. That’s a First World Problem.” (I had never heard this expression prior) as a helpful response just made my blood pressure erupt.
I now have a sensitve ear and hear or read it occasionally used and so far, have never heard it used as anything but as a slam against prosperity.
Am I over reacting?
@DaleB: My husband and I actually both write the date your way, too. 09 Sept 2013. We’ve signed all our mortgage papers that way so far and they can cram it if they don’t like it. We both also use 24-hour format for time for the most part; got used to it in Europe and frankly it’s just easier. I even set the clock in my car to read that way and I don’t care if it confuses my passengers, ha! At least I haven’t gone so far as to change the digital speedometer to show km/hr.
@Jenn: Oh yes. I know. Have already been to Costco with Mom twice; the first time I literally yelped out loud when I beheld the carts. THEY ARE MONSTROSITIES. Perfectly necessary ones, but good lord, the handle bar was like eye-level with my mom, who was pushing. We laughed our way all over the store.
@David: You are quite, quite right about how difficult the multi-directional carts are to maneuver when they’re full or when you’ve got the wrong shoes on. Honestly the ONLY reason I liked them was because they were easy to move sideways in crowded spots. The rest of the time, yeah, big pain in the ass. Also, yes, do be optimistic about coming back. I’m really noticing that a lot of the popular doom and gloom in the media and on TV is just not…real. I don’t know how else to put it. In the DFW area at least, businesses are booming, roads are being built, people are happy, there are jobs, etc. Still I’d love to hear your take on things when you do get back.
@Rich Jordan: ’71 Challenger? Oh yeah baby. I wanna see pics. I have a thing for muscle cars from that era, and Rupert restores certain older cars too. We have a few here in storage that we can’t wait to get into our new house…
@Chris: Well to be honest, yes, I do think that’s a bit of an overreaction to a pretty well-known joke :) Have you not heard of the First World Problems meme? Truly, it is meant as a joke, and it’s pretty funny in the self-deprecating way. The thing is, we are all, every single person who will ever read this, first-worlders. We can laugh at ourselves for complaining about things that aren’t starvation and genocide, and it’s not belittling or judgmental to do so. It’s just a recognition that we realize we generally have it really, really, really damn good. That’s how I see it, anyway. My friend Sarah shared this today and it’s just…funny: . :)
@Chris: By the way, I was just thinking about my response to you and I forgot to point out that while I don’t find the First-World Problems phrase belittling or judgmental, I do think it needs to always be applied appropriately, like when someone (like me) is complaining about too-big shopping carts or having to keep the measuring systems of the U.S. and Europe straight in her head. Those are, by definition, not problems by any measure.
All that is to say that whoever used the phrase “first-world problems” in response to you – when you lost an animal that you raised and that you obviously cared about, and when you were not sure if whatever killed that animal might kill your other animals too – well that person is an asshole. That person doesn’t understand proper use of the phrase, and that person doesn’t understand what makes the phrase funny. It’s only funny when it’s about things like those on that link I left up there, like “my cleaning lady isn’t here yet” and “no fennel left at the deli – disaster” and “my pool cover won’t open”, etc.
You don’t use it when someone’s animal dies. So I can see why it irritated the shit out of you when you first heard it. Just know that when I use it, and when most normal people use it, it’s not to belittle some actual, real personal loss. It’s to mock ourselves for saying things like “no shiraz so had to use merlot in the beef bourgignon”. Heh.
Okay, when I read your first response I had a real “well, shit, it IS me!” moment. I guess I better go get caught up on this meme….. So I can put it in a better perspective….. I mean….. And I AM a peron who lived 7 yrs in “3rd World” countries and thought I had a pretty good grasp of just how blessed and grateful I am to live in this one BY CHOICE AND BIRTH! But I must have missed something…..
Then I read your 2nd…… Ok….. All in all, I think I understand better…. The person who wrote this to me doesn’t grok me, or made an off attempt at humor. I never said anything to the person or anyone til now and I thank you for helping me get past this…. Slry. It has irked me but if you knew the bigger picture, you’d know why I can’t say, “ex-CUSE ME!” Some things you just let pass…. But they still make me think, “why would someone SAY that?”
God, I’m glad you’re back!