Things That Seem to be Really Popular Almost Everywhere Except for the USA

1. Eating Halls as Candy (instead of medicine)

Wave a package of these mentholated suckers at anybody who has grown up in the United States and I can guarantee you that the first image popping into his or her head will be chicken noodle soup and a bed full of snotty tissues. That's because to those of us growing up stateside, these are not candy. These are medicine. Sugar-coated, breath-freshening, fruit-flavored medicine. In fact, we are so serious about this designation that once, when I had a very bad cough in junior high school, I had to take my package of Halls to the school nurse so that she could dole them out for me at appropriate intervals. Why? Because students aren't allowed to have medicine on schoolgrounds and Halls are medicine.

Seriously, be careful. You can overdose on these. And remember kids: if you're going to start taking Halls recreationally at parties, don't mix them with alcohol and make sure to have a designated driver.

2. Poorly-Fitting Bathroom Doors

I have no idea what this is, but it amuses me and it's surprisingly difficult to find images of 'poorly fitting bathroom stall door' on Google

 After ten-ish months, fourteen-ish countries, and five-ish continents, I think I can count the number of times that I DIDN'T have to pee while holding the door closed with my foot on one hand. Sometimes the lock ALMOST holds the door shut, but success in this instance comes with the very real risk of never being able to open the door again and honestly, the closesness of it is more frustrating than when there is just no chance in hell. And sometimes, the door is so comically far from the toilet that you are forced to contort like a gymnast into some kind of weird pee-splits, one foot on the door, one butt cheek on the seat, both hands on the toilet paper roll for balance. (Incidentally, I would like to hypothesize that the side effects of this posture are 99% responsible for why bathroom floors are always so mysteriously wet and sticky... sorry about that.) Whatever the outcome, I have been forced to conclude that the rest of the world builds their bathroom stalls by constructing a carefully measured and size-appropriate frame, then going out into the street, picking up the first piece of construction material that looks vaguely like a door, and slapping it on with gorilla glue. A job well done fellows. A job well done.

3. Picnics

In the USA - or at least, the part I'm from - picnics are a cute, somewhat kitschy, ultimately pretty boring way to spend an afternoon, mainly enjoyed by families like the one pictured above who color-coordinate across genders and inexplicably produce bleach-blonde children out of two brunette parents (what color hair does the milk man have again?). But in the rest of the world, picnics are often the go-to free-time plan...

... and they're fun.

Picnics in the rest of the world (and especially in Buenos Aires!) are not about gingham tablecloths and wicker baskets; they are a whole frickin' way of life. Step one: invite absolutely everyone you know. Your friends, your family, your boyfriend, your ex-boyfriend, your ex-boyfriend's boyfriend, that homeless guy on the corner who is always talking about The Simpsons. The more the merrier! Step two: cram your backpack full of meat, cheese, tea, soda, wine, beer, cookies, rainbows, pastries, cocktails, puppies, chips, fruit, textbooks on thermodynamics, and salad. When it is completely full, find a few more things to cram in there anyway. Step three: create a blanket fort, lay out the spread, turn on some music, strip down to your swimsuit and spend the next hours eating/getting drunk/dancing/doing yoga/tanning/chatting/playing cards/whatever else floats your boat. To the rest of the world, doing nothing isn't being lazy. It's an art form. And it's awesome.

4. Floor Drains 

You see that little drain right at the foot of the toilet? Just hanging out, waiting to swallow up all your extra water? That, my friends, is one of the greatest things that the rest of the world has figured out that we just can't quite seem to grasp in the United States. In bathrooms and kitchens all over the world, designers finally realized that you may - nay, they expect that you will - get water all over the freaking place during certain activities. But in the rest of the world, that doesn't matter because you have a drain right in your floor!

Worried about the mess your dog is going to make when you give him a bath? Worry no more, because your FLOOR has a DRAIN IN IT! Want to shower with the curtain open because you have a strategically placed window and the neighbor's son is home from college? Go for it, because your FLOOR has a DRAIN IN IT! Want to plug the sink and then leave the water running while you do your dishes, thereby accidentally ruining the mahogany cupboards that you didn't really want anyway but your boyfriend thought would be a better match with the rustic feel of the home even though you told him a million times that oak would have been a been a more economical and aesthetically pleasing choice? Do it because YOUR FLOOR has a DRAIN IN IT! Best of all, after you're done making your little mini swimming pool, you can just squeegee all the excess water into the drain - and seriously, is there any cleaning-related activity more fun to do or to say than squeegeeing? - and then voilá! You've also just cleaned your floor. Boom. Amazing.