Ex-pat adventures

Moving from Texas to Indiana, I've definitely experienced some culture shock. Which, you know, we expect. But yesterday, this one little incident, for some reason, just blew my mind.

Jamie and I decided to do a traditional "sunday dinner" every weekend from now on so when I was at Wal-Mart getting groceries yesterday I went down the bread aisle to get the brown and serve rolls--nothing schmancy, but you know, traditional Sunday dinner fare. But they didn't have any! I looked and looked and thought, I must be crazy because I'm not seeing brown and serve rolls! Oh, they had rolls, just not the brown and serve kind. And, this is so completely silly, but I seriously started to get a little upset and lightheaded. It was weird because there have been lots of things that I've tried to buy here and can't. But no rolls just did me in. I almost stopped another shopper to ask, "don't you people eat brown and serve rolls here?!?" but managed to control myself. Instead, I grabbed my cell phone and called my mother. "Mom! They don't have brown and serve rolls here." "They don't?" "No. Are they a southern thing?" "I don't know." "Were you able to buy them in Massachussetts?!?" "Oh, I don't think so". Damn.

So, roll selection is out due to my blown mind, so I decided to move on to the produce section. I needed oranges, but the oranges were from South Africa. I ask you. What the hell? And they're expensive! So I'm all "excuuuuuse me!" to the young produce man. "Why do you have oranges from South Africa? Isn't that sort of a far way to ship oranges? Couldn't you get them from, say, Texas or California or Florida? And he was all, "Uhhhh, I don't really know" and he started looking around for someone to save him. And I don't know why I'm asking him this. It's not like stock people at Wal-Mart make purchasing decisions. So I found some tangerines from Chile that were less expensive and called it a day because really, at this point, I couldn't concentrate.

I went to check out and I got one of the chatty checkers. There are a *million* of them here, and I hate it. This one wanted to know if I had been to the state fair and I told her no and that I'd never been. And she wanted to know why so I told her because we just moved here from Texas. And she said, "Texas! Where's your cowboy hat!?! How can you be from Texas and you don't wear a cowboy hat?!?" and then she wanted to know if I married a cowboy. Why, yes! Yes, ma'am, I did!

But anyway, I'm ok now. :) And Jamie has assured me I can get brown and serve rolls here. I guess we'll see.