FAIQ #4 : What impresses you most about the United States?
TOILET ROLL
Growing up in Dublin, most houses I knew had a room you couldn’t go in. Not just me, the people who owned the house couldn’t go in. With the best furniture in the house and the best china, it was reserved for very special occasions. With 9 or 12 kids, you still chose to not use one of only 2 main rooms in the house, just in case.
These occasions never happened and even opening a door to these special rooms would elicit a shout from a parent. Now that people have much smaller families, and you would think therefore even less need to use these rooms, they are mostly used now. Not all though.
I have a friend who with her 4 young kids moved in with her mother and her two aunts not long ago. A tiny house, yet whenever a kid dared step into that room, pandemonium would erupt. I’ve been visiting the house for 20 years and I’ve never been allowed in there nor even heard of an occasion that the room was used for. I’m not counting when you’re dead, in your best coffin.
Stepping onto US soil for the first time 11 years ago I was in Boston airport, and found myself in the restroom, stall number 5 (I’m a stall number 5 man). Once I saw the toilet roll I knew I was in that special room with the best china.
Before that day was out, I was to use restrooms in Dallas and Kansas City, and the toilet roll left the same impression each time. It was kind of like Oh my god, they use this? Well no wonder they can send armies all over the planet. Having to indulge in such decadence was quite an introduction to the US.
FAIQ #4 is kind of presumptuous but I am frequently asked it, and still to this day, Toilet Roll is the answer, hands down - if you’ll excuse the expression. Of course as a resident now, I have discovered Big Lots and Dollar General, so I no longer need to have the feeling I’m in a room I’m not supposed to be in, and it stops me hearing a thousand Irish parents yelling at me.
Handy Irish Phrase: Ní sheasaíonn sac folamh (An empty sack does not stand)
Some Other Irish Questions Frequently Asked:
• Do You Know What They Do In Ireland?
• Have You Ever Been To Ireland
• Don’t You Travel By Train In Ireland?
• What’s With You Irish And All This Guilt?
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