You never fully appreciate how different Americans are from the rest of mankind until you surround yourself with other cultures. That’s not to say certain differences can’t be observed simply going state to state within the U.S. Traveling through the Smoky Mountain region on a college break many years ago my friend and I stopped to eat at a crowded local spot in a rural town. In a moment of post-adolescent awkwardness I spilled my coffee and then spilled the replacement cup as well. Sensing my embarrassment the middle-aged waitress announced in a bullhorn drawl, “Don’t you worry, darlin’. I got me a boy at home your age who’s so clumsy he could walk down the fifty-yard line and knock over both goal posts.” In New York we just say Fuggedaboutit.
My husband and I took a vacation last year on an Italian cruise ship that departed from Venice. For seven nights we were among 100 English-speaking passengers on a 1400 person European vessel. There were enlightening aspects to this but we were also literally outside the joke in every verbal exchange we encountered as well as frequently clueless spectators to the action. One night we happened upon an atrium packed with passengers overlooking the Teen Club event unfolding below. To the rhythm of a pounding house beat a voluptuous cruise director was emceeing a competition consisting of two groups of teens holding down adjacent tarps underneath which something was going on but we had no idea what.
Caught up in the excitement we joined in clapping our hands and stamping our feet while the movement under the tarps increased. Finally, the music reached a crescendo and the chesty emcee raised her arms shouting as the teens all let go of the tarps and revealed a flushed boy/girl pair under each tarp wearing each other’s clothing. The pair who had managed to emerge wearing the most of their partner’s clothes in the allotted time was the winner. The boy in the winning pair was wearing the girl’s bra and shorts. The girl had the boy’s shirt on backwards and his jeans around her knees. They were about fifteen. The passengers went wild. Husband and I looked at each other and in a Vulcan mind-meld formed one American parental thought: Lawsuit.
We discovered something else on this cruise. No one outside the U.S. drinks iced tea. Europeans don’t care so much about ice at all and the British consider cold tea sacrilegious. So we would routinely hold up the buffet line scrounging for ice cubes while balancing cups of hot water and tea bags. If this happened at the end of the buffet near the pool it was tricky because European women tend to wear bathing suits with not much coverage (and this means your mama and her mama) while the men favor Speedos. Try juggling cups of boiling water next to someone’s grandfather in a marble bag. Distracting to say the least. I would turn to apologize for the delay to the people behind us only to see some German passengers shaking their heads like, “And they won the war?”
Then one night at dinner we were seated with a family from New Jersey. Thrilled at the prospect of regular conversation we introduced ourselves eagerly and exchanged pleasantries. The woman was a sculpted blonde who seemed vague about her occupation. Her teenage son’s name was Drew but he told us to call him Vinny. Next to Husband sat the blonde’s cousin, an older man with shoulder-length black hair who looked like a Hell’s Angel. He said he was a priest. The empty seat next to the priest belonged to the blonde’s brother who was in the cabin waiting for his medication to kick in. We didn’t ask. We didn’t care. Tell us no secrets and we’ll tell you no lies. Just speak English.