“Listen, we don’t care if we’re coming off as defensive, don’t call us strange, okay?”
~AFFotD Staff
American Traditions are the glue that hold our society together. Be it drinking beer while watching football, drinking bloody marys and mimosas during brunch, or even one of the small handful of traditions that doesn’t involve alcohol, American Traditions are what make this country great, and are part of the reason why every other nation secretly wish they were us (trust us on this point, you know how a 3rd grader shows he likes a girl by pinching her? When other countries burn our flag in protest, it’s because they’re totally into us).
Now, yesterday we spent a lot of time making fun of the name of one “Jessika Toothman” who writes for HowStuffWorks.com due to the fact that she had the audacity to write an article about American traditions she feels would be considered “Strange” to foreigners. Strange? More like “awesome.” You know what’s strange? Spelling Jessica with a fucking K. We made that joke yesterday, and we don’t care, that’s how angry we are about this article. So that’s why we have, for you, part two of…
AFFotD Lampoons The Naivety of Foreigners Who Dare Protest The Intrinsic Value Of 10 Fine American Traditions (Part 2, Electric Boo-Ga-Loo)
The most recent item on the list we left you at was the 6th most “confusing” Tradition, which was not even an inherently well known American tradition. It involved shooting pumpkins out of a cannon, and yes we can wait for a second to give you a chance to spend the next ten minutes watching youtube clips of that. (Search for “Punkin Chuckin”). Of course, apparently Tooth Man believes that the entire season of fall is “foreign and confusing” to anyone not born in America, since the next on this list is happens to be trick-or-treating, which apart from being awesome, manages to tactfully combine children getting candy and adults getting candy. Heh. Sex pun. Nailed it. (Heh. Another sex pun.)
Watching Tooth Man try to describe how trick-or-treating “works” and how it would be “baffling” to everyone else actually isn’t that surprising, since given her name we can only guess she comes from a long family line of dentists. Trying to explain how it’s weird to let children express their creativity and get rewarded with it by grabbing candy is like describing how it’s weird that we take cocoa beans to make chocolate and then give it to women when they’re on their cycles. It makes everyone happy, so why question it? If a foreigner saw trick-or-treating and thought, “So they are just getting free candy? That’s strange” instead of thinking, “HELL YES FREE CANDY!” well, that’s sad, because they clearly have never tried Candy in their life before. Things are really rough in Somalia, is what we’re saying.
4: Presidential Turkey Pardons
You win this round, Tooth Man. That is really fucking weird. JUST EAT THE DAMN THING LOOK AT HOW DELICIOUS IT LOOKS!
3: Black Friday Shopping Spree
Tooth Man, we suspect that you secretly have some sort of vendetta against shopping. This is America, dammit, if we’re not spending our money on booze we’re spending it on useless items that will help us pretend that we’re happy while we continue to try to fill the gaping maw of sadness in our souls with material objects. Oh God, we’re so cold. So cold. Hold us.
Even if you come from a country that doesn’t know what Black Friday is, the concept shouldn’t be particularly strange. If you asked someone, “So Christmas is the biggest gift giving event of the year for America. When do you think most people would want to get all that shopping done?” they would probably respond, “Oh, maybe a month before the holiday? I mean, it’d be better if it was on some weekday where everyone got the day off…”
Boom. It just makes sense, Tooth Man. CURSE YOU TOOTH MAN!
2: Groundhog Day Prognosticating
You shut your damn dirty toothy mouth, this movie is an American classic.
1: Inches, Teaspoons and a Ton of Bricks
We’ve not really touched on our hatred of the Metric (ie, Europe measuring) system, so fair warning, things are about to get a little dark. If the Metric System were a person, we would break into its home, taze it, and release it blindfolded in the woods while we fired multiple gunshots into the air at a slight angle in the hopes that, eventually, the downward trajectory of the bullets returning back to Earth would strike the Metric System. Not that we have any experience in doing that with, say, captive bears. Nope. Never. Stop calling us, EPA agents.
Using American units of measurement (inches of height, pounds of weight, ounces of liquids, fucktons of whiskey) is only an American “Tradition” if you think that breathing or being awesome serves as an American Tradition. Mentioning how other people would be confused by American units of measurement is like pointing out that Americans get confused by algebra.
That’s it Tooth Man, we’re done with you. We’re done with this whole concept. If you tell anyone something is an “American Tradition,” and it truly is a tradition, it is impossible to be strange. Because everyone wants to embrace it, since we all obviously want to be American (looking your way, Canada). And maybe that’s the truest American Tradition of all- causing envy from everyone who is not a part of our club.
(Ha, but good luck joining that club, ‘cause our immigration laws are getting bruuuuutal, ha ha!)
America Fun Fact of the Day 