order | Head In A Blender

Happy new year everyone! Welcome to 2016!

It’s at this time of the year that America gets it right. There are so many occasions where they get it oh so wrong…but not at new year. No, this is the time they get it oh so right.

In fact, they get it right twelve times a year.

So what am I talking about? Allow me to go off topic for a change.

There are a lot of things in life that have a natural progression; night follows day,Ernie follows Bert and things that ‘must come down’ follow ‘what goes up’…it’s just the way things are.

A lot of things are incremented based on their size. Think about it.

X-Small / Small / Medium / Large / X-Large.
Baby / Child / Teenager / Adult.
Second / Minute / Hour.
Month / Day / Year.

Er, wait, what? I’m sorry, did I just say Month / Day / Year?

Sorry, my mistake! I can’t believe I said that!

What I meant to say was Day / Month / Year….obviously! I mean, who puts the month before the day?

Oh yeah, America does.

In America, for some reason, they do it arse about face. Not only do they write their dates in the wrong chronological order, they’re blissfully unaware of it. In fact, whenever I have this conversation with my newfound American friends they look at me with genuine surprise and say “Really?”.

They have no idea.

When I first moved from England this caused me some confusion. For example, today’s date in the UK is 02/01/15, but in America that’s considered the 1st of February.

How did this ever become a thing? Was Yoda teaching in early American schools?

By US logic, 8:30pm should be written as 30:8pm, right?

Actually it should be written as 20:30 (or 30:20), but the 24hr clock (or ‘Military time’ as it’s called over here) seems to confuse most people too. It’s practically a necessity to use ‘am’ and ‘pm’ to tell the time.

So, for twelve times a year they get it right. The 1st of January, the 2nd of February, the 3rd of March etc… all read the same way in America as it does in most of the world.

For 12 times a year, correct America gets it.

Yesterday, during a drive from Las Vegas to Riverside California, my wife and I stopped at the famous Peggy Sue’s diner for lunch.

We took a seat, ordered a couple of drinks,and perused the laminated menu full of 50’s puns and references to see what took our fancy. Soon enough the waitress came over in her 50’s diner uniform and asked us what we wanted to eat.

Mine was easy; I wanted a cheeseburger.

When my wife ordered it highlighted another big difference between the USA and the UK.

Below is an almost exact word-for-word account of the conversation my wife had whilst ordering her meal.

Waitress – “What would you like?”

My Wife – “Steak and eggs”

Waitress – “How do you want your steak?”

My Wife – “Medium”

Waitress – “How do you want your eggs?”

My Wife – “Scrambled”

Waitress – “Do you want hash browns?”

My Wife – “Yes”

Waitress – “Toast, biscuits and gravy or English muffin?”

My Wife – “Toast”

Waitress – “White, wheat or sour dough?”

My Wife – “Sour dough”