Saturday, June 10, 2006

Touché

Geekman was telling someone last night about his plan for Queen's Birthday Weekend:

"With a long weekend, there's nine meals involved, and I thought I might have waffles for all of them."

"Wow. Waffles. Do you cook them in the microwave?"

"No... in a waffle iron."

"Cool. A waffle iron."

"The trick is to use the right amount of cream, so that they go a little bit crispy without being so rich that you can't eat truckloads."

"Do you put the cream into the waffle iron too, then?"

"Well, into the batter, so yes, that all goes into the waffle iron."

"Wow! Batter! So do you make the batter and everything yourself?"

"The alternative being...?"

"I don't know, a packet mix?"

"What are you, American?"*

"I just thought that if you're the sort of person who has waffles for nine meals straight, then you probably aren't the sort who knows how to cook things from scratch."

_________

* Excuse the insulting stereotype. I assure you that Geekman has now learned the error of his ways and will not sin again.

4 Comments:

Unknown said...

Hilarious! Now, though, I want to know all the stereotypes of americans! Please to post on those.

and indeed, I make waffles from a "packet mix" (we just call it a mix here - we're too lazy to put the packet in front of it - plus it slows down the eating).

Lucy said...

um, yeah, the mix thing doesn't seem to be just a stereotype. It's not that americans don't know how to cook; they just seem to be more likely to use a mix, anyway (based on the oh-so-large sample of "people I know").

StyleyGeek said...

I guess we probably don't have the same variety of pre-mixes available here anyway: from my brief time in the USA last year I remember the supermarkets being full of things in cans, packets and in the frozen aisle that I never knew could come pre-mixed.

And Shrinky, I really don't think you want to know most of the stereotypes people have of Americans over here. They mostly aren't very complimentary and (based on the Americans I know), are generally horribly untrue.

It would be like people basing their stereotypes of Australians on what they know of John Howard. Or stereotyping NZers based on their experience of sheep.

StyleyGeek said...

Don't worry, Morton. People here are too nice to treat you like a stereotype (I think!). Mostly they'll wait until you've gone and then snicker behind your back :)

No, actually, the most common reaction I have seen people with anti-American prejudices have when confronted with a real live American is to go, "Are you sure you're American? Really? Really, truly? Because you seem pretty cool."

And then they'll go away and say to their friends, "Americans are [negative stereotype], but I met a guy from [state X] and he seemed okay. So [state Xians] aren't really like Americans at all."