In an effort to keep this post more interesting to both read and write, I will eschew those more obvious selections, such as American English and a mild lack of decent cheese.
First off, the Good:
#1. The Neighbours: The neighbours are both endlessly fascinating and quite aggravating, depending on time of day and which household one chooses to scrutinise.
Take, for instance, the people across the street with their vast panoply of half-finished and continuously breaking down vehicles, each custom-tailored to create as much noise as possible. While it’s always interesting to follow the progress of the latest car, and then watch it break down several times a year after it’s finished, I find it tremendously tiring to fall asleep to the guttural sound of a noisy engine.
#2. Amusing Signs: It could be me misremembering, but in the Old Country there did not seem to be signs such as the ever popular “LITTER AND IT WILL HURT” or the sign at the Canada/US border featuring E.T. encouraging drivers to buckle their seat belts.
#3. Radio commercials and public service announcements: Poor voice-acting, dreadful scripts, and general low-budget feel make each commercial break an entertaining and hard-to-listen-to experience. When the woman telling you about great prices stutters slightly, you know you’ve got a winning piece of advertising.
#4. Martin Van Buren: When I set out to think of four things I would miss, I thought I was aiming low and it would be easy to come up with that many. What I wasn’t counting on was it being late at night, and listing things being slightly harder than I’d warranted. So I went for the first American thing I could think of, which turned out to be the dead but much-loved Dutch President not many people seem to know about, Martin Van Buren.
The Bad:
#1. The Neighbours: Kindly see above for my thoughts on the neighbours, but while re-reading try to do so with after imagining a sheep stumbling into a ditch or similar mood-darkening image.
#2. The Federal Way Transit Centre: I am generally not perturbed by that proliferation of somewhat shady characters that tend to congregate at bus stops, but the Federal Way Transit Centre is simply a bit off putting.
I have no problem with transit centres as a whole-Bellevue has a perfectly nice one-but Federal Way has a clientele that, at their worst, seem to be comprised almost unswervingly of near-vagrant types and that certain calibre of cellular phone-toting youths that I so loathe.
#3. Americans (or perhaps it’s just Washington) and their weird vinegar: I am, at times, partial to vinegar with fish & chips. Imagine my surprise upon moving across the border, then, to find that white vinegar with food is unheard of, and malt vinegar is the condiment of choice. Most confusing.
#4. American currency: A rather minor gripe ( although that could be said for all of these.)
Despite protests to the contrary, US bills aren’t colourful. They’re just green; a fact which fails to impress me and my Canadian sensibilities.
