America: crazy, but still an epic wonderland

Editor,

I’m not sure you have ever noticed, what with being American and all, but America is crazy. Not just a little bonkers but full-blown diagnosable crazy — wonderfully so, but crazy all the same.

A point in proof: Drive-thru banks. Drive-thru Starbucks. Entire drive-thru restaurants. It has led me to wonder what secret, incredible wonders Americans have hidden in their cars that make them so unwilling to ever leave them, even for a second. Whenever I hitch a ride off one of my friends, I have a sneaky peak, but they just look like regular cars to me. It must be an American secret.

Another uniquely American invention I have discovered is Dippin’ Dots. Because normal ice cream just isn’t cold or round enough, and because normal ice cream doesn’t entertainingly spill everywhere as you are jostling past rowdy Lobo fans at another thrilling football game. Who wants ice cream that doesn’t threaten to roll right off the spoon with every tantalizing mouthful?! Not Americans, that’s for sure!

While we’re on the subject of strange things Americans think are normal, may I just bring up my personal favorite: The senior picture. How is it that no one in any senior class in any high school across any of the 50 states of America has ever, ever thought that there might be a slight chance that giving all your friends heavily airbrushed pictures of yourself in improbable locations is just the tiniest bit … odd?

Here friends, have a picture of me rolling in the grass with the wind gently fluttering in my hair to remind you of all the times we hung out together in high school. Really, guys? Really? Why do you want to see your friend in black-and-white looking mysteriously into their future and all the glories it holds every time you get a snack from the fridge?

And yet every time I mention the sheer strangeness of this tradition to my American friends they look almost offended, as if by questioning how exactly a picture of them taken with a soft-focus lens is an appropriate parting gift to their friends, I had poked fun at their senior class and all it stands for. I’m sure you all have the most incredible, generous and loving friends but why exactly would you want many, many pictures of them?

And yet for all these oddities, I just have to look up to see all the wonderful things about America. Up at the huge, overwhelmingly blue sky, at the beautifully sparse Sandias hugging Albuquerque in their large arms, at all the incredible things America has to offer. No other country has the diversity and brilliance of America. No other country can offer skiing, beach trips, rolling plains, desolate mountains, grand canyons, casinos that pop up out of the shimmering heat of the desert and the chance to buy footwear that washes your feet so you don’t have to bend down.

For all its faults — and it seems some Americans are too quick to point them out — it really is a place to be proud of. And I can’t wait to get to know it.

Amy Dicketts
UNM exchange student