Apr. 19: You know you’re… when…

I kinda like these lists. Most of them are embarrassingly entertaining and we see way more of ourselves in them than we want to admit. I found the first two at The Shadowlands, along with links to a bunch of other nationalities’ lists. Check them out if you’re interested.

This first one is from Zompist. There’s no mention of the date it was written, but a few indications that it’s several years old.

If you’re American...

• You believe deep down in the First Amendment, guaranteed by the government and perhaps by God.
• You’re familiar with David Letterman, Mary Tyler Moore, Saturday Night Live, Bewitched, The Flintstones, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Donald Duck, the Fonz, Archie Bunker, Star Trek, The Honeymooners, The Addams Family, The Three Stooges, and Beetle Bailey.
• You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you’re male, you can argue intricate points about their rules. On the other hand (and unless you’re under about 20), you don’t care that much for soccer.
• You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year.

If you died tonight...

• You’re fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you’ve certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you’re going to Heaven.
• You think of McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.
• You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don’t kill your own food. You don’t have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
• You don’t consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.
• A bathroom may not have a bathtub in it, but it certainly has a toilet.
• It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.
• You expect, as a matter of course, that the phones will work. Getting a new phone is routine.
• The train system, by contrast, isn’t very good. Trains don’t go any faster than cars; you’re better off taking a plane.
• You find a two-party system natural. You expect the politicians of both parties to be responsive to business, strong on defense, and concerned with the middle class. You find parliamentary systems (such as Italy’s) inefficient and comic.
• You don’t expect to hear socialism seriously defended. Communism, fuhgeddaboudit.
• Between “black” and “white” there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.
• You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.
• You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don’t use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.
• You’d respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese--but you very likely don’t yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You’re a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.
• It’s not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English--and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.
• You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.
• School is free through high school (at least, it’s an option, even if you went to private school); college isn’t, unless you get a scholarship.
• College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long.

Everybody knows that…

• Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.
• The date comes second: 11/22/63. (And you know what happened on that date.)
• The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.
• A billion is a thousand times a million.
• World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.
• You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding--a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.
• If a man has sex with another man, he’s a homosexual.
• Once you’re introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.
• If you’re a woman, you don’t go to the beach topless.
• A hotel room has a private bath.
• You’d rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
• You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.
• If a politician has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.
• Just about any store will take your credit card.
• A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.
• You like your bacon crisp (unless it’s Canadian bacon, of course).
• Labor Day is in the fall.

Contributions to world civilization…

• You’ve probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you’re under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.
• You know the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson, Simon & Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt. If not, you know Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, and Kate Smith.
• You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you’re not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.
• You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn’t name ten US interventions in Latin America.
• You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.
• You’re used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.
• You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.
• You are not a farmer.
• Comics basically come in two varieties: newspaper comics and magazines; the latter pretty much all feature superheroes.
• The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.
• You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody’s around. If you’re a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them.
• You think of Canada as a pleasant, peaceful, but rather dull country, which has suddenly developed an inexplicable problem in Québec. You probably couldn’t explain why the Canadians didn’t join the other British colonies in rebelling against King George.
• You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.
• The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.
• If a woman is plumper than the average, it doesn’t improve her looks.
• The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.
• The nationality people most often make jokes about is the French.
• There’s parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night.

Outside the Beltway…

• You feel that your kind of people aren’t being listened to enough in Washington.
• You wouldn’t expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.
• You don’t care very much what family someone comes from.
• The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.
• You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It’s likely you don’t see that many plays, either.
• Christmas is in the winter. Unless you’re Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.
• You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don’t think that it would be a good idea.
• You’d be hard pressed to name the capitols or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.
• You aren’t familiar with Mafalda, Lucky Luke, Corto Maltese, Milo Manara, Guido Crepax, Gotlib, or Moebius.
• You’ve left a message at the beep.
• Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.
• You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments--you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.
• If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor’s first.
• There sure are a lot of lawyers.

Space and time…

• If you have an appointment, you’ll mutter an excuse if you’re five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it’s ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.
• If you’re talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.
• About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques. Haggling is largely a matter of finding the hidden point that’s the buyer’s minimum.
• Once you’re past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone’s place. People have to invite each other over--especially if a meal is involved.
• When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it’s only good business to “play hardball.” Some foreigners pay excessive attention to status, or don’t say what they mean, and that’s exasperating.
• If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.

This next list came from Culture Clash.

You Know You’re a Canadian When...

• You stand in “line-ups” at the movie, not lines.
• You’re not offended by the term “Homo Milk.”
• You understand the sentence, “Could you please pass me a serviette, I just spilled my poutine.”
• You eat chocolate bars instead of candy bars.
• You drink pop, not soda.
• You know what it means to be on pogey.
• You know that a mickey and 2-4’s mean “Party at the camp, eh!”
• You can drink legally while still a teen.
• You talk about the weather with strangers and friends alike.
• You don’t know or care about the fuss with Cuba, it’s just a cheap place to travel with good cigars and no Americans.
• When there is a social problem, you turn to your government to fix it instead of telling them to stay out of it.
• You’re not sure if the leader of your nation has EVER had sex and you really don’t want to know if he has!
• You get milk in bags as well as cartons and plastic jugs.
• Pike is a type of fish, not some part of a highway.
• You drive on a highway, not a freeway.
• You know what a Robertson screwdriver is.
• You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
• You know that Thrills are something to chew and “taste like soap.”
• You know that Mounties “don’t always look like that.”
• You dismiss all beers under 6% as “for children and the elderly.”
• You know that the Friendly Giant isn’t a vegetable product line.
• You know that Casey and Finnegan are not a Celtic musical group.
• You participated in “ParticipACTION.”
• You have an Inuit carving by your bedside with the rationale, “What’s good enough protection for the Prime Minister is good enough for me.”
• You wonder why there isn’t a 5 dollar coin yet.
• Unlike any international assassin/terrorist/spy in the world, you don’t possess a Canadian passport.
• You use a red pen on your non-Canadian textbooks and fill in the missing u’s from labor, honor, and color.
• You know the French equivalents of “free,” “prize,” and “no sugar added,” thanks to your extensive education in bilingual cereal packaging.
• You are excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada.
• You make a mental note to talk about it at work the next day.
• You can do all the hand actions to Sharon, Lois and Bram’s “Skin-a-ma-rinky-dinky-doo” opus.
• You can eat more than one maple sugar candy without feeling nauseous.
• You were mad when “The Beachcombers” were taken off the air.
• You know what a toque is.
• You have some memento of Doug and Bob.
• You know Toronto is not a province.
• You never miss “Coaches Corner.”
• Back bacon and Kraft Dinner are two of your favorites food groups.

My Canadian friends will have to tell me how much of that is really typical of their citizens. They are also invited to explain to stupid Americans like myself the definitions of “pogey,” “Thrills,” and “Canadian Tire money.” Thank you.

This next list has been all over the ‘net. I think I’ve even posted it here before. I think it applies to Portlanders more than Oregonians in general, but whatev.

You know you’re an Oregonian if...

• You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.
• You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it’s not a real mountain.
• You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, Oregon, Yakima and Willamette.
• You are not fazed by “Today’s forecast: showers followed by rain,” and “Tomorrow’s forecast: rain followed by showers.”
• You know the state flower (Mildew).
• You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.
• You use the statement “sun break” and know what it means.
• You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.
• You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant.
• You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “Walk” signal.
• You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Veneto’s.
• You consider swimming an indoor sport.
• In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark while only working eight-hour days.
• You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.
• You know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon.
• You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.
• You know that Boring is a place and not just a state of mind.
• You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Thai food.
• You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover.
• You notice “the mountain is out” when it’s a pretty day and you can actually see it.
• You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50°, but still wear your hiking boots and parka.
• You switch to your sandals when it gets about 60°, but keep the socks on.
• You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.
• You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.
• You buy new sunglasses every year because you can’t find the old ones after such a long time.
• You measure distance in hours.
• You often switch from heat to air conditioning in the same day.
• You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat.
• You know all the important seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Raining (Spring), Road Construction (Summer), Deer and Elk season (Fall).

This last one is for those of us who were raised in no way prepared to live among the “normals” of society.

You Know You Were raised SDA If:

• You pronounce “Adventist” as “AD-ventist,” not “ad-VEN-tist.”
• Your Little Friend wasn’t a person.
• Your bedtime stories were about real people instead of fairy tales.
• You had an Uncle Arthur, Uncle Dan, and Aunt Sue and were amazed to find out that all your friends in Sabbath School did too.
• You think of kids instead of cars when you hear the term “Pathfinder.”
• You can remember what the letters “MV” and “JMV” stand for.
• You have a board somewhere in your attic with a bunch of knots glued to it.
• You wondered if the earth would last long enough to have a girlfriend/boyfriend.
• Parenthood held many nasty surprises because you really believed Uncle Arthur when he said, “and he never disobeyed again.”
• You know “HMS” as a name, not a ship.
• You know how to play poker with Bible Authors cards and Wheat Thins.
• You know how to play Rook but not Bridge or Hearts.
• You have looked for angels outside of a movie theater.
• On Saturdays you catch yourself telling your children, “You can wade, but don’t swim.”
• The word “Philistine” has a meaning in current terminology.
• Your tie falls in your soup because you don’t wear a tie tack.
• The Review is not a full military dress inspection.
• You agreed to sing so you wouldn’t have to solicit.
• Saturday Night Live had meaning before the TV program.
• You read labels on cans years before nutritional labeling was available.
• You saved labels off of cans years before recycling became fashionable.
• You have asked for a Veggie-Whopper at Burger King.
• You take more time at the Taco Bell counter than the last six customers.
• You take a helping of Nuteena because you like it, not out of courtesy.
• You can tell the difference between Linkettes and Vegelinks with your eyes closed.
• You know 101 ways to prepare FriChik.
• You have more than twelve uses for soybeans.
• You can stack 3,000 calories on a plate at a church potluck.
• Your guilt trip ended the day Nabisco started using vegetable shortening in Oreos.

You May Have Gone To An SDA Boarding School If:

• You know all the basic square dance steps but only know how to execute them to march music.
• Your high school principal was an expert on female hemlines.
• You rolled down your skirt on the way to the principal’s office.
• Your Friday night date was to vespers.
• You went to banquets instead of dances or proms.
• You were called out of class to clean your room.
• You can grill cheese sandwiches on the bottom of an iron.
• You learned how to study in the dark after lights out.
• You’ve seen The Sound of Music with a hand in front of the projector during the kissing scenes.
• You have been to movies during which the lights came on periodically for a hand check.
• You knew who was engaged by asking the time.
• You couldn’t dance at school parties, but passing an orange under the neck was a non-sensual activity.
• The only time you could hold hands was while roller-skating in the gym.
• The other side of campus was no-man/woman’s land.
• You know what MCC stands for.
• You took cinnamon rolls back to the dorm on Friday afternoon.
• You have referred to high school as academy.

Source: the ‘net, of course