This piece is based on an AskReddit thread. Link at the end of the article.
1/30. Y’all can’t drink alcohol until you’re 21 but you’ll sell a gun to someone who’s 18.
-MidNinetiesDirtbag
2/30. ‘Bounty hunter’ is an actual real life job. How?!
-srslynowwhat
3/30. When I was 12 years old, I was super excited because I was getting ready to attend my first summer camp in the US. But before I left, this girl in my class told that almost all Americans were overweight.
Having grown up with Charlie’s Angels reruns, and Baywatch episodes, I refused to believe Americans were obese. For me, they were the mold every human being should physically aspire too.
When I arrived at JFK airport, boy was I in for a surprise. It made me worry for people’s health.
-bontem
4/30. You genuinely need a statistic for how many toddlers kill people.
-blueXcat
5/30. The ticket price on the shelf is NEVER the actual price of the item. Why don’t you just calculate the tax?!
-pernunz
6/30. I didn’t believe there could possibly be that many flags anywhere. Went there once, saw more flags than houses. 10/10 would flag again.
-coffee_machine
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7/30. Everything there is big, and I don’t know why.
-Non-combative
8/30. I saw a billboard ad for a hospital. As a Canadian, that baffled me. Like, what? Just take me to the closest one…
-poopsack_williams
9/30. I got into a discussion with an America who said the police once arrested him just for being drunk. He wasn’t doing anything other than trying to find his new house in a town he’d recently moved to, and they spotted him looking confused.
The subsequent case saw him fined something like $3,000.00. For being drunk. That’s it. I was stunned. That’s really not freedom right there, folks.
-fweng
10/30. I didn’t think anyone could be in favor of for-profit, private prisons. I mean, seriously? [When prisons become a business, we have a problem.]
_MusicJunkie
11/30. Chicago’s Murder rate exceeds the entirety of Canada. Currently, Chicago is at 554 gun deaths this year. Canada is at 516.
Up here in America’s Hat, the media is reporting 2016 to be the year of the gun because at 516, this is the most violent year on record.
I would also like to point out that the population of Chicago is about 2.7 Million. The Population of Canada is about 35 Million.
-RubixRube
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12/30. Apparently you can buy firearms at Walmart, but Kinder Surprise is illegal.
-Rasalas8910
13/30. So you roll into the ER, in complete agony with a kidney stone. They say “we’re going to do a CAT scan”. Of course you say “yes” because depending on what exactly is lurking in your kidney, further procedures may be needed to prevent serious injury.
You’re in and out of the CAT scan room in 15 minutes. But did you just have a $300 CAT scan, or a $3000 CAT scan? Who knows?! You’ll find out a couple weeks later, and if you’ve got a large deductible, you’ll probably have to pay most of it out of pocket.
Welcome to America.
-merreborn
14/30. Anti-vaxxers. Seriously. Why? I live in a third world country, and I’ve seen the results of not vaccinating. I’ve also worked with autistic children. Where did they get the idea that polio, measles, etc are better than autism (which isn’t even a real side effect of vaccines)?
-exiledstar
15/30. You really will most likely see weird stuff at Walmart. I walked into Walmart with my roommate and saw a drug addict dressed only in overalls, yelling “WHERE’S THE SAUCE AT” to passersby.
-JapandaBudmaster
16/30. That you have no paid maternity leave. Like, really, that’s incredibly basic.
-Paulspike
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17/30. I only recently found out that you guys don’t have minimum statutory holidays! I thought I must have read wrong so did some googling and it was even worse than I thought, you don’t even have to be paid for public holidays!
-granny_weatherwax_3
18/30. In the US, you pay for the cup not for the Coke! The idea of free refills fascinates me.
-sid12385
19/30. I didn’t believe it when someone told me you call the winners of your domestic championships the World Champions. But….you do.
-EnFlagranteDelicto
20/30. I can’t believe you have $10 vodka bottles and like 1.5 litre ones for $20, if I lived in America I would certainly be a raging alcoholic.
-C-MaccaPack
21/30. I couldn’t believe the nonexistent public transport. Everything is so big and spread out that you need a car to get from one end of the mall to the other, and people live in sprawling suburbs. That’s why.
As someone who grew up in an European city, a car was something you maybe used when you wanted to go outside the city or needed to transport something important.
-aaaaaaaarrrrrgh
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22/30. I can’t believe that your public toilets have such large gaps at the bottom of the doors. Always thought ‘no way, who would design something like that so you can almost see someone using the washroom?’
Been visiting America for that last month and avoiding public toilets like the plague for this exact reason.
-maccaige
23/30. That you actually have aerosol cheese… Just the very idea is disgusting to me.
-CrazyCuttlefish
24/30. I heard Americans don’t have the word “fortnight”. But then what do you say when it’s every second week?
-crustybreadrolls
25/30. I was surprised how many of the stereotypes we pick up from the media are real when I went to New Jersey on a work trip.
I fully expected things to be more like home than they are on TV/in films, as they are in every European country I’ve been to. But no. Things were even more … American … than on TV.
The number of fast food places. Drive through everything. Walking anywhere was impossible. Enormous car parks. People getting way too excited about my accent. Seedy motels. Terrifying television. Flags! Houses straight out of the Sims. Crazy long slow trains. No hatchback cars. More flags!
-claireauriga
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26/30. I can’t believe at-will employment. The notion of someone getting fired for literally any reason is bizarre to me.
“Sorry Joe, I don’t like the way you walk. Get out.”
-scratchalot
27/30. As Spaniard, I have the obligation to help someone who has had an accident on the road, or is seriously injured in the street, by law have to help.
In the US, it is best not help, because you may be sued.
-Hackerstein91
28/30. I was amazed that undocumented immigrants actually hang around outside hardware stores looking for work.
-audidude92
29/30. When you grow up in eastern Europe like me, you watch a lot of soap TV shows like “Bold and the Beautiful” and “Young and the Restless”.
So I grew up thinking that in America everybody has a good life and everyone is rich. Couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve never seen more poor and messed up people in my life, and the super rich people don’t really care about them. They just walk past them like it’s another Tuesday.
-esirnus18
30/30. It’s weird that most clubs and bars in the US close at 2 AM. In many European countries you can party all night long to 6-7 AM and then theres the “Morning” bars and clubs as well, which literally opens when the others closes down for the night.
-kredes