The America Story Part II
Sara: 25 year old New Zealander.
Brittney: 22 year old American.
Sara and Brittney: Very charming couple who met in 2007 at Pittsburgh and live in New Zealand together.
Sara: 25 year old New Zealander.
Brittney: 22 year old American.
Sara and Brittney: Very charming couple who met in 2007 at Pittsburgh and live in New Zealand together.
Quick background: Brittney has two nephews, one is 6, other is 10 going on 11 next week, and a niece who is 10 as well.
They’re frequently at Brittney’s mum’s house and because of this, there’s a nice collection of toys, games and movies about the house.
I very much like toys.
Especially action figures.
Lately I’ve been… borrowing action figures and carrying them around.
The other week, Brittney was doing laundry down in the basement and asked me to help. I was to go upstairs (2 floors up), and toss laundry down the chute in the bathroom.
This excited me, immensely - I’d never used a laundry chute and I’ve only seen such a thing in American movies and tv shows.
I wanted to put other things down the chute, things that weren’t laundry.
I gathered a small bunch of action figures I’d been playi.. OBSERVING recently, and set them up beside the laundry chute.
This was pretty much going to be the coolest thing ever.
At first I shoved my face in the chute and made whale noises, then ghost noises, then CAWCAW noises.
Brittney was busy putting clothes in the washing machine.
I threw the first action figure down the chute,(wrestler Rey Mysterio) and he landed in the laundry basket.
Next I grabbed a small Superman figure, held him at the top of the chute, then dropped him right in the middle of this sentence Brittney was saying while her head was underneth the chute opening:
“DON’T DROP ANYTHING DOWN”
That was followed by a loud “ow”, cry/yelp of pain.. a little bit of “What the fuck did you throw”, “you hit me”, “What did you do”… etc, etc.
Now, I felt really horrible about this and there was a large bump on Brittney’s head because of that fuckwit Clark Kent, but I couldn’t help but.. somewhat.. smile.
My smile made a smile noise in the laundry chute which echoed down,
and what I heard next was:
“ARE YOU LAUGHING?!”
Which of course caused me to laugh.
Brittney is fine now, and she isn’t too mad at me anymore… in fact I think she’s forgotten about the whole thing
..I probably shouldn’t post this.
I’ve been in America for 4 weeks now. I still don’t know if Thanks Giving is one word or two.
Four messy upside-down side-way weeks.
It’s a bizarre thing, trying to figure out time differences, temperature differences, season differences, opposite vehicle differences..
and this is all still in the same language.
I have great respect for people who immigrate to countries so starkly different to their own.
Thanksgiving, a very big deal.
Maybe not to some Americans, but in this country, everything is a big deal.
I want to be neutral to experiences here, not some negative foreigner who loathes anything American, but, it may seem that way in the next few paragraphs:
I’m trying to understand Thanksgiving, I’ve just eaten a beautiful meal courtesy of Brittney and her mother, I’m thankful for that and my stomach is bursting at its seams, but
all I’ve gathered from television, commercials and movies is,
Thanks giving is about people eating.
Maybe not as simple as that but, people eating together and making sure everyone has something to eat.
I understand the pilgrims and native American history, I understand the necessity to be gracious and family orientated but, ultimately I think that’s all there is to it:
People eating together.
Perhaps the excess food consumption is purely an attempt at gaining extra fat tissue and energy that will be used up the following day:
Black Friday.
In which case, I’m very well prepared.
Look out, Wal mart.
