You Know You're in America When......

I'm back to the good ol' US of A.  Landed, had about 48 hours to start unpacking my house, unpack from Ghana and get packed for a much needed family vacation to Hawaii.  The Hawaii trip was fantastic, but it took me several days to recover from the jet lag and flat out fatigue.  I'm back on lovely Vashon, continuing to get settled and balance managing a project that is in a time zone 7 hours ahead of me.  I keep having little bouts of culture shock.  Here are the things that have most stood out as uniquely American:

1) Dogs have playdates
2) I can call a number 24/7 for customer service for just about anything - and the attendants apologize "for the wait" when I've been on hold for more than a minute
3) Food portions for 1 person are big enough to feed a whole family in Ghana
4) When I order food in a restaurant, there's a really good chance I'll get what I ordered, how I ordered it and in a timely manner
5) Open water swimming is much, much colder
6) Traffic laws are mostly adhered to
7) I don't have anyone to cook, do my laundry and take care of the yard - then again, doing all of those things is a LOT more efficient here
8) Debit and credit cards are used for everything - on the airplane, they don't even accept cash
9) Electricity and water is reliable and consistent
10) Everything moves really, really fast and I'm still not quite up to speed :)