Since the first edition of You Know You'r an MK When... people have taken up the book and started reading it, chuckling over items, asking questions, etc. And then they get to number 70.
70. You really do enjoy Oriental folk music.Every single one of them looks up, and says, "You do?"
I don't, actually. It's one of the items in the book I've never liked, and it's one that I've gotten voted down on for changes in the last five editions. But tonight, Deborah relented, and we can choose a new item to go in it's place. My short list of contenders:
You frequently say, "I don’t know, I was out of the country."Which one would you choose? Any items in your copy that bother you, or that you think are no longer relevant, or dated? Speak now, or hold your peace for another few years!
If someone asks what school you went to, you reply, "depends on the year."
You miss people before they're gone.
A more telling question than "Where are you from?" is "What countries are you following in the Olympics?"
When your parents say "home church," you're not sure which one of the dozen or so they're referring to.
2 comments:
I like "I don't know. I was out of the country." It isn't funny, of course, just true.
The one about the Olympics would make a good second choice. Actually I follow at least three countries there. The Tour de France has lost some of its appeal, though. For more than a decade it was won by either a U.S. citizen or a Spaniard. I suppose we'll have to let the rest of the world have a chance now.
Another possibility would be to generalize it, something along the lines of "You enjoy folk music from another continent" or possibly "You enjoy kinds of music that nobody around you even knows about".
Personally, I'm not, as a general rule, a big fan of folk music from *any* continent. I don't suppose oriental folk music would be any worse than folk or Country music from the US, but that doesn't mean I want to listen to it. Nonetheless, I think the MK-ness of the entry would be enhanced by generalizing it to cover more than just oriental music. On the other hand, it's still somewhat redundant with "You like everything from Reggae to Japanese Rap music" (#52 in the first printing).
Of the other five, I like the first one, about being out of the country, best.
The one about school is somewhat redundant with "You went to grade school on one continent, high school on another, and college on a third" (#260 in the first printing).
The one about missing people sounds really familiar, but I can't find it in my copy, so maybe I'm imagining things.
The one about the Olympics is thematically similar to the one about the World Cup, but not so similar that I'd really call it redundant.
The one in the first edition that has most bothered me is, "You have ever seen an adult buy and eat a Happy Meal at McDonald's" (#289). I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that a double-digit percentage of McDonald's Happy Meals are bought and eaten by adults all the time in the US, and during certain promotions the percentage rises above 50%. (In the extreme case of the Beanie Babies promotion, the percentage was probably over 90%, as something like half of the middle-aged women in North America had their hearts set on collecting the full set. That was kinda scary.)
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