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Today I was asked about The Boot.
I wondered how long it would take. 1 month, not bad.
The maintenance guy for my building is about my age and a Simpsons fan. We discussed the toilet fallacy and he seemed pretty knowledgeable about the toilets of the world so I thought he was joking when he first broached the subject of Bootings. But the thing is he was neither joking nor completely stupid: he had heard about the rattan beatings they give in Singapore and wondered if we really had some bizarre corporal punishment that Matt Groening was trying to parody... I dunno, I was expecting to be asked about the size of our beers or whether we call bullfrogs "chuzwozzers" but the Boot question really caught me off-guard.
The only other really stupid question so far was "Have you ever seen a kangaroo?" from an Indian guy. His Indian friend pointed out that this would be like me asking him "Have you ever seen an elephant?" and it stopped there.
I thought by this time I would have more anecdotes about how Americans see us. I think it might be that they can't tell the difference between my accent and the English. Oh, well, I'm sure I will get plenty more in my time here.
