Bill Bryson

Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

Bekki

Now I would hate for you to think that my loyality with respect to postal delivery systems can be cheaply bought with a chocolate twirl doughnut and a Styrofoam Cup of coffee, but in fact it can.

Much as I admire Britain's Royal Mail, it has never once offered me a morning snack, so I have to tell you that as I strolled home from my errand, wiping crumbs from my face, my thoughts toward American life in general and the U.S. postal service in particular were pretty incomparably favourable.

I did a foolish thing the other afternoon. 

I went into one of our local cafés and seated myself without permission. 

You don't do this in America, but I had just had what seemed like a salient and important thoughts (namely, "There is always a little more toothpaste in the tube - always. Think about it") and I wanted to jot it down before it left my mind. 

Anyway, the place was practically empty, so I just took a table near the door. 

After a couple of minutes, the hostess came up to me and said in a level tone "I see you've seated yourself." 

"Yup," I replied proudly, "Dressed myself too." 

The other day I called my computer helpline, because I needed to be made to feel ignorant by someone much younger than me...

I decided to clean out the refrigerator the other day. We don't usually clean out our fridge - we just box it up every four or five years and send it off to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with a note to help themselves to anything that looks scientifically promising - but we hadn't seen one of the cats for a few days and I had a vague recollection of having glimpsed something furry on the bottom shelf, toward the back (Turned out to be a large piece of gorgonzola)

It was because she was English, of course. She didn't really understand the rich, unrivaled possibilities for greasiness and goo that the American diet offers. 

I longed for artificial bacon bits, melted cheese in shade of yellow unknown to nature, and creamy chocolate fillings, sometimes all in the same product.

I wanted food that squirts when you bite into it or plops onto your shirt front in such gross quantities that you have to rise very, very carefully from the table and sort of limbo over to the sink to clean yourself up.

"What's that?" my wife asked in the special tone of voice with which she often addresses me in retail establishments. 

I didn't have time to explain. "Breakfast for the next six months" I panted as I sprinted past "and don't even think about putting any of it back and getting granola"

And what exactly is a toaster strudel? Who cares? It was coated in sugar and looked drippy. I grabbed an armload. I admit I got a little carried away - but there was so much and I had been away so long. 

It was the breakfast pizza that finally made my wife snap. She looked at the box and said "No."

"Your not bringing home something called breakfast pizza. I will let you have" - she reached into the cart for some specimen samples - "root beer buttons and toaster strudel and..." She lifted out a packet she hadn't noticed before. "What's this?" 

I looked over her shoulder. "Microwave Pancakes", I said.

"Microwave Pancakes", she repeated, but with less enthusiasm. 

I have never had a garbage disposal before, so I have been learning it's tolerances through a process of trial and error. 

Chopsticks give perhaps the liveliest response (this is not recommended, if course, but there comes a time with every piece of machinery when you just HAVE to see what it can do), but cantaloupe rinds make the richest, throatiest sound and result in less "down time". 

Coffee grounds in quantity are the most likely to provide a satisfying "Vesuvius effect" though for obvious reasons it is best not to attempt this difficult feat until your wife has gone out for the day and to have a mop and stepladder standing by. 

The most exciting event with a garbage disposal, of course, is when it jams and you have to reach in and unclog it, knowing that at any moment it might spring to life and abruptly convert your arm from a useful grasping tool into a rubber. 

Don't try to tell me about living in the edge. 

One night after we had been there about a month, I was reading unusually late when out of the corner of my eye I noticed the cat come in. Only here's the thing: the cat was with me already. 

I looked again. It was a skunk. Moreover, it was between me and the only means of exit.

I have particularly vivid memories of Iowa summers because my father was the last person in the Midwest to buy an air conditioner. 

He thought they were unnatural (He thought anything that cost more than $ 30 was unnatural).

I'm a Stranger Here Myself quotes

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