(A little bit more) You Know You're an MK When...

102. You eat a lot of chicken, because it tastes so similar to the dogmeat that you miss.
103. You don't think that eating goldfish is an old fraternity prank.
104. You know what the name of your subcompact car means.
105. You know someone with the same name as your subcompact car.
106. You determine your speed by the smaller orange numbers on the inside of your speedometer dial.
107. You cruise the Internet looking for fonts that can support foreign alphabets.
108. Riots make you homesick.
109. You try to get onto a military base by showing your passport.
110. You have seen both the north star and the southern cross, and you can navigate by either constellation.
111. It scares you more to send your kids to public school than it would to send them on an unescorted plane trip
112. You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.
113. You hear a song from the 50's and tell your friends you "like that new song, who sings it?"
114. All black people do not look remotely alike, nor do Hispanics or Asians... But Europeans or North Americans are kind of hard to tell apart at first.
115. Climates that get below about 72oF (20o C) are against your body's religion.
116. The thought of encountering snakes, scorpions, wild animals, witch doctors or armed rebel insurgents on an afternoon walk evokes a response like, "Yes... and So...?" whereas the idea of merely driving through, let alone living in, an American city terrifies you.
117. Someone asks you where you most enjoy just hanging out and you immediately think of happy hours spent in international airports.
118. In spite of your passport country's climate, your parents influence, and your or their religious scruples, you have an unsurmountable aversion to clothing any more substantial than your average thong bikini bottom.
119. The thing that made you feel most at home when you returned to your passport country was the "new", "modern", body peircing and tatooing fad.
120. You go to a church you have never been in before and find your picture on their bulletin board.
121. The bestword you can find to describe the U.S. is "fake".
122. When you find a gravel road you find some of your MK friends and go drive along it at night with the lights off and the windows down, reminiscing.
123. The sole finally comes right off your favorite pair of shoes, so you go looking for the itinerant shoe repair man who will fix 'em better than new right there on the sidewalk while you wait.
124. Your idea of "we deliver " is buying fresh mangoes, pineapple, bananas, passion fruit, guavas, and other fruits that have no name in English, all delivered to your door by the street vendor who comes by your house twice a day, knows exactly what kind of papaya you prefer, and who always saves one for you.
125. You used to hate hand-me-down clothes but now a friend leaves an old shirt at your place that happens to fit, and you wear it often because it reminds you of your friend and your childhood.
126. You actually look forward to the rare times the power goes off because it makes you feel nostalgic, *and* you might get a chance to see those stars that are still etched so vividly in your memory.
127. You didn't get a license until you're 18th birthday, but you started driving the ancient family landrover when you were seven, looking out through the raiseable ventilation louvres under the windshield.
128. For years, you thought those ventilation louvers were what air-conditioning meant.
129. You have this deep, sinking feeling that someone, somewhere has that fifth grade braces-and-stringy-hair picture of you on their refrigerator.
130. You look at the Rockies and think, "Nice hills."
131. You automatically take off your shoes as soon as you get home.
132. You visit an Ancient History museum and see a display of tools and household implements that you have used often and may even still own.
133. Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around.
134. You know hundreds of missionaries all over the world, but forget your pastor's name.
135. You consider a three year old piece of clothing to be "Practically new."
136. you get nostalgic about sleeping every night in the summer under mosquito netting, after the bed has been dusted with DDT and the air sprayed with Flit, and little green spirally things are burning in every room in the house.
137. You don't know whether to write the date as month/day/year, day/month/year, or some variation thereof.
138. You play tricks with the International Date Line.
139. You meet another MK, and discover that you share the same best friend.
140. The best word for something is the word you learned first, regardless of the language.
141. You still use those words, even if you know what they are in English.
142. There are times when only your family knows what you're saying.
143. You mesclar your idiomas without even thinking about it.
144. You embarrass yourself publicly by automatically picking up and using what turn out to be not-so-palatable expressions.
145. You won't eat Uncle Ben's rice because it doesn't stick together.
146. Your firends nervously remind you to drive on the right side of the road.
147. You get mad at minorities complaining of discrimination when they have no clue as to wha it's like to be a real minority.
148. Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you.
149. You occasionally feel an urge to climb a volcano, but can't find one.
150. You wake up one day and realize you're not a foreigner anymore.
151. You wake up one day and realize you really still are a foreigner.

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Copyright © 1996-2000 Andrew and Deborah Kerr. Use by permission.