Things I Took for Granted About America

Sometimes it takes being away from home to appreciate little things that used to make your life better without you even knowing it. I have compiled a short list of some of those things for your amusement…

Eggs. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and levels of cleanliness here, all in the same carton. I’m not one to really care if my eggs are a bit dirty or pooped on, it kind of gives them a rustic feel in a way...which I suppose is part of their earthy charm, but the size thing can lead to complications. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I were just planning on making omelettes all the time, but when it comes to baking, where precision is a bit more essential, it kind of makes a difference if the recipe calls for 2 eggs and one is giant and the other tiny. I may have to start weighing my eggs…

“Normal-sized” Ovens. It’s kind of a kick in the pants when you discover that half of your baking pans won’t fit in your “European-size” oven. It is also a sad realization when you discover that your oven is smarter than you and you can’t figure out how to make it work on 90% of the settings it has available {why in the world you would need so many is beyond me}, distinguishable only through little unintelligible drawings. This, in turn, forces you to bake everything on the convection setting, thwarting half of your recipes in the process.

Legible Street Signs and Visible Road Markings. In Moldova, if street signs even exist they are often attached to the buildings, and if you're lucky they're actually on the corner building. This, of course, is not generally the case and even when they are there it's not like they're made out of the fancy reflecting material that the signs are made out of back home making it all but impossible to find your way around at night (or during the day for that matter). As far as the Road Markings go, if you're out driving when it's raining or at night, or any time of the day, really, it's also pretty indistinguishable where your lane ends or starts, where pedestrians can cross or anything like that, which adds to the element of surprise while driving around these parts. I tell you what, I have never been more grateful for my little Google Tablet with Google Maps which magically shows me where I am going. 

Emissions Testing. Back home, every time I would receive a notice in the mail about having to have my car tested for emissions my first reaction was always a big groan, then annoyance, then a pending feeling of dread, followed by generalized grumbling and grumpiness until I finally got my act together and took the stupid car to get tested. The grumbling may or may not have continued even after I took it in, accompanied by an air of resigned indignance and defeat. The humanity! All that to say, when you are stuck in traffic here behind a rusty old soviet car emitting toxic gases into your car and nostrils, from which you can’t really escape, you start to recognize there might be some value in having emissions standards.

Seedless/Boneless things. Grapes, cherries {inside pies, specifically, where you would never expect to find a giant cherry pit}, watermelons, limes, fish, chicken, etc. There’s nothing like being surprised by bones or seeds in places where you didn’t expect them…I’m just saying, you should consider yourself lucky to be in America when it comes to eating potentially pokey food items.

Credit Cards. Those things {for better or for worse} are soooo easy to use in America. Everywhere. For everything. While credit cards are accepted here in some places, it is generally advisable to use cash instead for most, if not all, purchases. Getting enough cash out in limited quantities at a time can be tricky around here, especially if you don’t want to pay what Michael Ball has termed “idiot taxes” like the international transaction fees that banks insist upon charging you overseas. Also, when you attempt to pay with a credit card, they tend to look at you, incredulously, like you’re some kind of a nutjob when you try to explain to them that in America one does not need {or even have} a pin number for a credit card, that they are only used for debit cards, and that you are, in fact, not weird or inept for not having one.

Light Switches being in reasonable places. Don’t know how this ended up happening, but the light switches here are in curious places. They mostly like to put them in really inconvenient places like outside of rooms, or on the complete opposite side of the house. In some older apartments {I have been told} they are located up high on the walls {like 5-6 feet high}, while in others, perfectly placed at kid-height so that if there are any little kids present they can wreak havoc have a good time pressing all of them and in the process “turning off” your garage door, unbeknownst to you, leaving your car trapped in the driveway and rendering your clicker useles, forcing you to scramble to find other means of transportation because you were unaware that it was even possible for your garage door to be “turned off”.