Top 12 Signs of Culture Shock

You May Be in Culture Shock if . . .

1.  You can't tell if the water delivery man you called for the second time just told you that:

• someone already should have brought you the water,
• someone is leaving right now with your water,  or
• there is no more water

2.  You find yourself unreasonably weepy or full of rage and really can't pin anything down as to why

3.  You answer your kid in Spanish because you were distractedly figuring out how to say something in your head while he was talking to you.

4.  You can conceive no logical pattern to the grocery store layout.

5.  You accidentally left IKEA before you were done purchasing your couch and had to be called back in by cell phone.

6.  You completely switch the answer to "So how are you adjusting?" several times within the same day.

7.  Your living room light flickers every few seconds for a few hours after you turn it off at night.

8.  You find yourself rigging up a way to balance the millipede you just caught in your dining room under the lizard on the window in your sons' room to make sure the lizard is getting enough to eat

9.  Your two year-old daughter says "No, gracious" every time someone approaches the car with limes or cell phone covers at a stop light.

10.  You are awakened just as often by roosters as you are by house alarms.

11.  You have ants nesting in your power cord and your computer keyboard.

12.  You find yourself using a screw driver to gouge sap out of the wooden ironing board you bought (because it reminded you of Pottery Barn) when you realize that Customer Satisfaction is not a concept that really translates outside of the U. S.