culture smash!

[kaigou]

Actual conversation, the other day. I've been to England/Scotland (otherwise raised in the Deep South), while CP attended a Brit school as a kid. Makes for some odd culture-squishes, here and there, in the house conversations. I still don't know how this one started, but I think it was thanks to CP's trip to the grocery store.

CP: I was in the international food aisles, and you know what they have there? Right next to the Hispanic food, there's British food-- and Heinz baked beans.
Me: Say what?
CP: Baked beans, Heinz. Because it's apparently a huge part of British breakfasts to have American baked beans on your eggs.
Me: What, when you're not getting a slice or two of tomato that's been cooked until it's kinda crispy--
CP: But otherwise soggy? Yeah, that.
Me: Did that aisle have appropriately burnt toast, too?
CP: Just baked beans.
Me: Because my sister and I could never figure it out, I mean, the entire time we were in Britain, all we got was burnt toast.
CP: It's a thing.
Me: But it didn't make any sense! They'd put the toast in, it'd stay in until smoke was coming out, and they'd pop the toast out, burnt black.
CP: And I'm sure your mother scraped off the burnt parts and told you that you were gonna eat it, and you were gonna like it.
Me: She did it with a smile, too.
CP: Unh-hunh.
Me: Still, I mean, it's not like we didn't know how to set the toaster to not burn the toast. And I was eight! My sister was five! We knew about how to stand over the toaster until the bread was nicely browned and then pop it out -- if it was looking like it'd still be going -- and then we'd get bread toasted just so. We couldn't figure out how an entire country seemed to be clueless about this.
CP: Well, like the British space program...
Me: Hunh?
CP: There isn't one... and now you know why.

Snark rules this house, sometimes.