Dear Americans: what are you saying?

Staff Writers Yuki Adams and Julia Tolda were discussing how silly you Americans are in assuming when you say things like “Don’t worry about taking your shoes off here” and “come sit so we can eat ants on a log while catching the 49ers on TV” that us non-American grown kids understand you! If you (an American) have ever wondered which allegedly ‘normal’ things take some adjusting for international students to understand, here we are to fill you in.

1. The obsession with putting so much sauce on everything. Not everything has to be a blended combo type of sensory overload! Can’t you all just enjoy food for what it is!! I get that produce is not always super fresh and tasty because America is geographically so overwhelmingly large (why is it 4 hours to Boston from NYC it’s like… right there) but you don’t need to put hot sauce or barbeque sauce on everything for it to taste good. And there are ways to consume celery that doesn’t involve peanut butter and raisins! Also, side note: Mayo is lowkey gross and doesn’t need to be on everything. Next!
2. No subtitles on your movies. Are you illiterate?
3. Milk as a beverage. HUH??? WHY?? Also, aren’t half of you lactose intolerant? You already put it in your cereal right? And you can’t really put ice in your milk because the only thing worse than you drinking MILK with your dinner is WATERED DOWN MILK with your dinner. Americans please, explain. If you were curious we drink water or tea with dinner, like what we assumed normal people do.
4. Calling your grandparents so many different things. We get it there’s a lot of diversity in America which is wonderful but can you please preface by saying “My grandma that I call Yaya” before you launch into a full story about her. Yaya could be anything to me… your cat, your mom, the street you live on.
5. Fast food/ gas station tribalism. Why are you so passionate about where the grease comes from? Is In-N-Out REALLY that much better than Shake Shack? Why are you so invested in Wawas? Or Sheetz? Isn’t it all just grease under the guise of potato? 
6. In addition to the previous point the fact that you all have random play places attached to fast food places. That makes these places inherently not fast food. You’ve made McDonald’s slow food. We’re confused.
7. “What’s your favorite Christmas movie? Mine’s Elf I have to watch it 5 times or Santa won’t come” you willingly watch the same movie every year over and over and still enjoy it? We have good word that the Elf guy commits sin #3 of being really into milk and sin #1 of putting sauce on everything (maple syrup on pasta?). 
8. The large gaps in public bathroom stalls. What is up with this. For people who allegedly value individual freedom and privacy so much you really throw that out the door once you go to pee. I have made direct eye contact with someone while I was peeing at 2 am. Why is there so much space? People who are pee shy deserve the privacy they were promised in the restroom. Shy rights matter.

Sorry if this offends you in the slightest we’re two silly foreigners intruding on your culture and going to college in your country. Take this as an open call and request to educate us.

No really please help us… we don’t get it.

play place via Wikimedia Commons