I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that used to bother me back home, and the things that bother me here. When I say “bother”, I mean things that puzzle me, that don’t make sense, that make me go WTF, and also that anger me. Let’s face it, I do get angry sometimes (a lot), especially when it comes to things that pertain to common sense and simple decency (and lack thereof). I’m talking about things that I see around me every day, things that I can’t absolutely do anything about, things that do affect me (more or less), things that just aren’t right, things that no one really seems to care about. This is not to be taken as a rant (especially because I’m trying to stay way from rants and control myself as much as possible, in an effort to be as objective as I can). So I decided to list, in bullet points, a sort of comparison between the two societies/cultures I have experienced so far. These are just examples. Here goes nothing:
ROMANIA:
- Standing in line for fours hours to buy necessities (bread, milk, soap, etc.): neighbors were always pretty good about letting everyone know when trucks were seen pulling up behind stores. They would spread the word, and I had to go stand in line until my mom came with the actual money to buy whatever it was. It was me going because I was the youngest in the family. Even if my mom told my brother to go, he would delegate the task to me, and I couldn’t refuse. That meant punishment. From him AND from my mother.
- Being thrown out of the Communist Youth Organization because my dad was a traitor: I was in second grade!!! At that age, all this organization meant for me was that I would wear this pretty red scarf around my neck, on which badges representing scholastic achievements could be pinned. I couldn’t wait for the whole ceremony, and I couldn’t wait for everyone to finally see how good I was in school, only to be told that I was not eligible to even participate for the reason mentioned above. It was devastating.
- Having to bribe doctors in order to make sure they paid attention: I once took my mom to the ER at about 10 pm because she thought she was having a heart attack. While in the ER, there was a young man there with a pretty nasty wound to his head, bleeding profusely all over the place and other people; it was about 3 am when someone came out to look at him. In the meantime, my mom was still thinking she was having a heart attack, was scared out of her mind, and there was nothing we could do about it. After someone finally showed up and took her in about 4 am, I ended up wandering the hospital hallways until I found a smoking area. Yes, we used to be able to smoke inside buildings back home (even hospitals). In fact, I remember being in college in 2001, and smoking right outside the classroom in the hallway. Good times!
- Using public transportation: During communism, the only individuals who owned their own vehicles were government people. No one else had access to personal cars, so we all used buses. The buses only functioned between 8 am and midnight, so if you had a job starting at 6 am, you had to walk (luckily, I was never in that position myself). The buses were usually very crowded, to the point that people literally hung from the bars on the doors that never closed. It was the perfect environment for individuals who loved groping your private parts. It happened so much, I got used to it. No one ever said anything, the only solution was to get off at the next stop, regardless of whether you reached your destination or not. This actually continued to whole time I was home, all 24 years, because no one could really afford cars even after the revolution (this has changed in the past 5-8 years, and more and more people now have vehicles for personal use; it has actually gotten so bad that now there’s no room to park these cars anywhere; when the communists started building entire cities, they never accounted for the fact that, maybe sometime in the future, people would have cars; as a result, cars are generally parked on the sidewalk, and double- and triple-parked; it’s a nightmare!)
USA:
- Women calling the police because their husbands are having affairs: this was reported in our local newspaper.
- People being let go from their jobs based on policies that don’t exist anywhere in writing: this has recently happened to me.
- Honey Boo Boo: no explanation needed (I REALLY hope I don’t have to explain this one).
- Churches EVERYWHERE: according to http://www.churchangel.com/WEBTX/nacogdo.htm, there are 40 churches in Nacogdoches, TX, a town with about 35,000 people. My home town is about the size of Dallas, and it has about 8 churches total. Please don’t take this to mean that I’m against religion. I just think the number of churches is quite…a bit too much for my own taste (again, I got nothing against religion, although I do have issues with those using religion to control people and make money off of them).
- People applying for Social Security benefits because they are illiterate: I had to evaluate a 21-year-old girl one time, drop dead gorgeous, with blond, long hair, beautiful green eyes, and legs up to her neck. She flat out told me she was applying for benefits because she couldn’t even stock shelves at WalMart because she couldn’t read and write. She had somehow slipped through the cracks in school (No Child Left Behind is awesome, but that’s for another post), and she had no other way of making a living. When I asked her what would happen if she didn’t get these benefits, she said: “Oh well, I know I’m pretty, I’ll always find a man to take care of me!” (Just FYI, tax payers support these people, including myself).
- People getting offended over every little thing: I recently found out you can’t tell kids anymore to sit down Indian style (with the legs crossed on the floor), because that’s offensive. You now have to say “Criss cross, apple sauce.” (What does that even mean?? I wasn’t able to find out where that comes from, or who made it up).
- People subjecting their children to horrible things, with impunity: When I worked at the Boys Ranch (residential treatment facility for boys in the custody of the state, who had been removed form their homes due to abuse and/or neglect), I read stories about fathers peeing in the mouths of 2-month-old girls; mothers taking their children to motels where they had sex with strangers for crack, with the kids present; fathers beating their children with baseball bats to “remind” them of what would happen if they didn’t follow the rules; entire generations sexually abusing five-year-old boys because “my grandfather did it to me, what’s the big deal?”, etc. etc. These people never went to jail. They were always under some kind of Family Services program, where the state goes in and tells the parent to follow some rules, and then give the children back. In other cases, women just had other children after some were removed from their custody. In four years of working there, I have not heard of one parent going to jail for these horrible things they did.
Again, this is not a rant. These are just things I’ve observed and/or experienced. We still have freedom of speech, right? I’m not gonna get in trouble for posting this, am I? Just checking…