10 Things I’ve Noticed About Non-Americans
October 25, 2011 9 Comments
A response to this list of “10 things I’ve noticed about Americans”, seen via Andrea Harris:
- They hate ice. It could be 105 degrees outside and their Coke could be served out of a lukewarm plastic 2L bottle that spent the last 3 hours in the back seat of a car parked in the Walmart parking lot. Nope. Don’t want ice. Don’t you DARE put ice in their drink. To be fair, some non-Americans are from extremely poor, backward countries (like France) and so perhaps being pathologically conscious the amount-of-fluid they are getting for their 75 cents, and zealously maximizing its volume (i.e. becoming frantic at the thought of some of it being displaced by frozen water), is just what comes naturally to them, given their deprived upbringing, etc. I shouldn’t judge.
- They think all Americans have guns and that it’s “easy” to get guns in America, despite never having actually seen an actual American with a gun. The principle at work here is, essentially, extrapolation from TV and movies. Just look how easy it was for Magnum P.I. to get a gun, for example. He had it right there in the opening credits.
- They are fascinated by Americans, and love to learn about them, talk about them, and collect facts about them. There is no end to the list of things that non-Americans could rattle off about Americans.
- …
- hmm
- (crickets)
- Sorry I’m gonna have to cut the list short. Couldn’t think of anything else I’ve noticed about non-Americans. I’m sure there’s something. Maybe I should have spent more time researching this post.
They hate hateful people, but they hate people who demand that others pay attention, and at the same time, they hate people who don’t pay attention.
They are irritated toward Americans who reach middle-age without having passports, but they’re also irritated toward (most) Americans who visit them.
They’re easily ticked off at people who are easily ticked off…and yet…they…well, my own list is starting to roll according to a certain theme. Isn’t it?
They offer around cigarets. At least they did 40 years ago when everybody smoked.
They prefer American cigarettes to their own — or at least they did in 1981 when my mother and I went to Europe. I didn’t smoke — she did. She made sure to bring her own brand with her, which was Camels. Everywhere we went we had at least one person come up and beg her for a smoke, even when they had their own smokes poking up out of their coat pockets. Then again, have you smelled a Galois? I thought Camels were the worst until then…
(I don’t smoke, by the way.)
And oh God yes, the ice thing. I didn’t even like ice in my drink back then, but I’m in England, and I asked for a Coke and I saw the barman take a can off the shelf behind him FFS, it wasn’t even refrigerated. They don’t — or didn’t — refrigerate any of their sodas. But when I asked for some ice I first had to endure the stare like I had three horns growing out of my forehead, and then I get my drink with four teensy little ice cubes floating around in them. I’m talking minuscule.
Here’s a fun experiment: if you ever do go to Europe (and of course you won’t, you provincial Yank cretins, but if ever you should), tell ‘em you’re from Texas. You WILL be asked if you’re a cowboy, and though they’ll chuckle and try to play it off like a joke when you tell them no, you can see in their eyes that they were serious.
I traveled some in Europe with an old college buddy from Texas, and by the end of the first week he’d gotten it down to a mantra: “I’m John, I’m from Texas, no-I’m-not-a-cowboy-and-I-don’t-ride-a-horse.”
The pinnacle of cosmopolitan sophistication, those Euros are.
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We were at a hotel in Leyden, Netherlands, and the management had taped this message to the ice maker:
“If the ice machine is empty because someone thoughtlessly took all the ice, please come to the bar.”
It was a big, floor-standing ice maker. I was bemused, because the machine’s very existence is predicated on a never-ending supply of ice.
I am not an American, and I loath ice in my drink.
I used to be impressed by Europeans that spoke 5 languages until I worked with a man from Luxembourg that spoke 7. He pointed out that his country was very small (less than 1000 square miles). He had to speak his native language, French, Flemish and German because each was the primary language used less than 50 miles from his home. He also learned English, Italian and Spanish since they were the primary language just a few hundred miles away.
London is closer to Athens than NYC is to LA.
Since people come to the USA from all over the world, I would speculate that the average American is exposed to more diverse cultures than the average European.