Unlimited Toilet Paper

     

     I have been out of the United States for an extended period of time twice in my life.  Both times the return home was a culture shock.  The first trip I came home from India where I attended an international boarding school.  The school, located in the foothills of the Himalayas was sweet and innocent.  When I came back to the United States I was immediately thrown into the last month of public school, an eighth grader in rural Maine.  I remember the first day of school clearly.  Some of my classmates put pencil shavings in the teachers coffee when he left the room.  I couldn’t believe how rude the students were to the teachers and how cruel they were towards each other.  The opposite of the innocent missionary boarding school in India.  It took me about two weeks to adapt. But soon I was one of those cruel, rude kids, giving the teachers the finger as they turned their backs and destroying public property with my skateboard at my side.

     Now I am returning from a long stay in Oaxaca, Mexico.  I crossed the boarder in Tijuana and entered the United States with fresh eyes.  Here in San Diego there are clean bathrooms with unlimited toilet paper, no litter, and in the midst of a recession what seems like unlimited resources.  Stores  are filled with items that would break the jaws of someone living in rural Mexico.  I don’t want to adapt to the sense of entitlement that we have as Americans.  I don’t want to forget what I saw and lived.  Here we are fat with privilege, with everything we want, collectively whining like spoiled toddlers at Toys R Us.  I know that I am lucky.  Lucky for the opportunities given to me at birth.  I think as a society we are blind, sucking up the worlds resources and complaining about it.  

     I am lucky to be from the United States not proud.  Now excuse me as I need to go get a few things from Wal-Mart and use their spectacular bathrooms with unlimited toilet paper.          






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