Culture Stress

The times you really feel stressed are when you are used to doing something one way; so used to it, its like unconscious.  For example, getting a cart at Wal-Mart.  One time we went to a store and found a thousand carts all chained together under a sign with the admonition to bring your own cart from outside.  We had no idea how to access those carts.  That makes you feel stressed (or stupid).

Today we went to the movies to see Hancock (hardly a family film, we should've read up on it first).  We had tickets to the 1pm show.  Now you can have virtually the same movie experience anywhere in the US from Orlando to Seattle.  You get your ticket, get your popcorn, get a seat, go to the bathroom (at least I do), come back for some ads and then the previews at about the scheduled start time, 1pm in this example.

We stood in the line to buy our assigned-seat tickets and then got our snacks (Craig had a cup of corn--real, yellow, buttery corn eaten with a spoon and everyone else had caramel corn), then waited for the "Now Seating" light to go on.  Now that is probably three new things: assigned seats, a cup of corn, and a "now seating" light.

Well, some time shortly after 1pm they started to let people go into the theatre.  This was just after Hudson dropped his Coke and it went everywhere.  Now, here when you enter into the cinema its already dark and the previews are already showing.  Sometimes they alternate with TV commercials.  Sometimes there are no previews at all.

Another different thing is the niche marketing in the US.  You go to see Wall-E and you will see previews for kid movies, go to see James Bond and you see James Bond-like previews, etc. Here you might see slasher previews before Wall-E.  Hmmm, different.

So here we are in our dark cinema with a cup of corn and Hudson crying and the ticket stubs out looking for row H (and since people are the same everywhere--almost all the little directional lights have been kicked out by previous patrons).  We get to our seats and then set out for the restrooms, which are usually far away.  This time they are down the steps and around a corner.

Then just when you find yourself thinking, "Can't anything ever be easy?!?" you know you are feeling culture stress.  And you try to laugh about it.  Turns out yelling is not much help at all.

I mean it really is rather funny when the guy installing your new A/C unit moves his hands in big circles and says, "No working, no working!!" just like in some carton or something.  Its not so funny at 8:30pm after a full day of culture stress but later you can laugh about it.

Finally some normal news, we were cleaning and watching our "No Working! No Working!" men yesterday when our kids spied some other kids.  Two doors up we have a boy and girl really close in age to Bethany and Hudson and next to them a boy the same age as Caleb.  At one point we had about 10 kids in the yard yesterday.  That felt really natural.  I can do that with my eyes closed.