Crazy Americans! Now where is it that you left your keys?

OK, so this was in the local newspaper (or something really close to this) about a month after we immigrated here from The Netherlands.

“The Bluffton Sheriff’s department is asking all residents to take their keys out of the car and or close car windows while shopping at the local grocery store (Yes, this would be your local Walmart).”

And I just could NOT stop laughing, I really almost peed my pants while running over to mom and dad to show them this little article on page 4 of the local newspaper!

We really had a hard time believing what we just read so we read it again, and again...

We had already noticed a HUGE difference in “what people do” here, and with here I mean, local Indiana, in the middle of nowhere, county living, RURAL AREA, Indiana. They sure had different methods of leaving their keys somewhere else than what we were used to coming from the Netherlands.

In Holland you need to lock EVERYTHING. This includes: Cars; first of all, lock them with CLOSED windows! Second, hide your CD player, phone, I-pad, kids toys! And do not leave laptops or other important devices in your car because your car will be broken into or (worse) just be plain GONE! Bicycles; have at least two locks, and maybe an extra chain that you can put around your bike and wrap it around a lantern post. You probably will lose your bike anyway to some drunk person who couldn’t find his or her bike and just took yours. Good thing we have HUNDREDS of bikes in Holland… Your wallet; have a big HEAVY chain on it, chained to your jeans otherwise somebody else WILL TAKE IT!

Especially walking in a big city like Amsterdam it would be even smarter to keep your wallet close to your body under lot’s and lot’s of layers of clothes. It WILL be gone before you have even noticed it! Your tractor; yes, in these days even tractors are not safe anymore, they will take them and run them into a big semi and ship them off to different parts of Europe. And finally your house, never ever leave your house unlocked, not even for five minutes to borrow a cup of sugar at your sweet little old lady (that your barely know) neighbor! Your house will be empty by the time you drank her tea and eat the old stale cookies and got back!

Soooo now you know how it works in Holland. Well, this is how it worked in rural Indiana. And maybe you can understand our confusion. And my big “WHY?” Every time I would see something like a running or unlocked car.

People leave their cars running in the winter while they are shopping. “Why???” Because otherwise the car will be cold by the time they get back. People leave their cars running in the summer while they are shopping. “Why???” Because otherwise the car will be hot by the time they get back. To me this sounds like “LAZY” all over, but maybe I’m just looking at it wrong and should I look at it as “SMART”?!? But what if somebody would see you car and drive off with it...

People leave their cars windows down in the summer while they are shopping. “Why???” Because (normally these are the crappier/older cars) they have NO air condition and otherwise the car will get hot while they are shopping… I do have to admit having a older BMW with no air conditioner it was pretty tempting to leave the windows down… And then my CD collection of Matchbox Twenty kicked in and I walked back to my car after walking 10 steps away from it and closed the windows… What if somebody would take my Rob Thomas…

People leave their cars unlocked while shopping. “Why???” I have no idea…. Maybe because it is always a hassle to find your car keys when you are pushing a full cart…? That was the only reason I could think off…. Well... It is pretty annoying to dig out your keys while your cart strolls off into a empty neighboring car that DOES have the engine running…

People have their houses unlocked while they are going on a vacation for THREE WEEKS?!? “Why???” Because they forgot to lock it and they took their keys with them? Maybe? I really didn’t get this one but after a couple of nights laying awake pondering this I came to the conclusion that maybe grandma didn’t have a spare key…

So yes, crazy American’s. Right?!?

To be honest I am a bit torn on this one. One side of me says, “Who is the crazy now?” The Dutchies because they have come too such a sad society they cannot trust anybody anymore and have to lock everything everywhere…  And the other side of me says; The “Crazy Americans”, who just leave everything out in the open and don’t lock a thing, anywhere, because they trust each other to leave the stuff that is yours, yours and the stuff that is mine, mine?!?

I kinda like the idea of not having to lock up your belongings all the time and that you have enough faith in your fellow earthlings that they don’t steal your stuff all the time….

But… I still lock my car…. And our house…. And I still hide my wallet in a special compartment in my handbag…

Crazy me?


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If you missed the first "Crazy Americans" please check out Crazy Americans & Public Restrooms !

Once upon a thunderstorm

Whenever people find out that we are not from the US, one of the first questions is;

“How’s the weather over in the Netherlands” or “what is the difference between the weather here in Indiana and the weather in Holland?”

My answer is pretty much always the same. “It is a bit warmer in the winter and a bit cooler in the summer”, “ours (as in ours, the Dutch weather) is a bit more the same all year round, we don’t have the high’s and we don’t have the lows.

With that said, Oh my gosh, if it rains in Indiana, it RAINS. If it is warm, it is WARM (with 85% humidity) and if it is cold, it is COLD (as in my little nose hairs will freeze against the inside of my nose cold).

And thunderstorms, Yes, you kinda know what is coming;
The thunderstorms are mind blowing even without the occasional twister…

It was 2008 and I was in full chemo mode.
To cheer me up and comfort me, my little sister came from the Netherlands and helped my hubby, mom & dad and brother driving me back and forth to the hospital and assisting me from my bed to our living room. Every Sunday I would almost feel like a human being again and this particular Sunday, because my sister was here, my mom suggested to go out to dinner. She wanted something fancy but all I cared for was a Big Mac.

I really didn’t feel like going at all, but to please my mom and because my little sister was here I agreed to go to Mc Donalds… Best thing ever, Mc Donalds, even if you do nasty chemo…

The funny thing here in the US is that if there is a thunderstorm, or big rain or anything like that coming, they usually do a really good job in letting you know. But us stubborn foreigners and not to familiar with the news broadcasting saw the news (and the HUGE storm coming our way) and decided to ignore it…

My sister even asked us if we could go, with the thunderstorm coming our way and all. But i was like, “Yeah, sure!”  I had after all set my mind on a Big Mac! Nothing could stop me fromg getting to dinner now!

We went to Mickey D’s and got myself a nice Big Mac and watched TV (because there are TV’s EVERYWHERE here) on which they kept announcing bad weather. My little sister (and yes she is 30 now, and not so little anymore, but she is my little sister) got a tiny bit more worried. She asked pretty much everybody every five seconds if it was safe to drive home and what that (meaning the tornado alarm) was on TV….? “Nothing to worry about” I told her. “American’s like to over react…”

After 5 minutes, it really doesn’t take long to eat a Big Mac, the sky turned into a real ugly green…

By that time the news lady sounded a bit panicky too…

It started lightning, and the sky turned into an even uglier green and reddish color…

The Amish buggies were flashing by Mc Donalds, probably trying to get home in time, and I felt a bit sick. Not because I eat too much (or because my stomach had shrunk to the size of a peanut during chemo, and I couldn’t possibly eat a whole Big Mac), no… I did NOT like the way the sky looked and I wanted to go HOME!

But of course I couldn’t let my sister feel whatever it was that I was feeling, I after all told her not to worry and that those crazy Americans exaggerate immensely, all the time… storms included…

My sister didn’t want to leave! By that time she was so scared she decided to stay put.

So we pretty much PUSHED her in the car, telling her we had to go home, to the farm to be exact, we had over 2000 cows we needed to look at, not to mention 7 employees, that probably were as scared as we were, trying to keep the farm running (power outage, looked more and more an issue at hand).

When we got to the first intersection I looked right, and I shouldn’t have done that …

I saw sparks coming off of electric posts breaking and crashing to the ground. Tree tops flying by and police cars and firefighter trucks speeding to the far end of town (All the Amish buggies had disappeared by that time). This was the direction we needed to go, but my dad wisely (after seeing the look on my face) decided to drive straight South.

Limbs (no not branches, LIMBS) were flying by, leaves everywhere, hail the size of golf balls, and RAIN, so much RAIN…. We couldn’t drive fast, but my dad drove as fast as he dared to go. My little sister was ducked down in the back of the car cursing at us and screaming “that we should have listened to those weather reporters!”

I agreed…

We turned on the road leading to our dairy and the wind suddenly disappeared. We pulled into our drive and the sun was shining. No storm, or there was a storm just seconds ago, scene anywhere!
The power didn’t even blink!

The next day we found out there was indeed a tornado, touched down, merely half a mile from our Mc Donalds at pretty much the same time we left the building and it ripped up trees, posts and houses. Luckily nobody was hurt (al the SMART Americans listened to the TV or radio and went to the basement).

My little sister and I drove up to the hospital the next day, watching all the rubbish and trees and phone poles lying around and she told me, if she ever was to come back to the US and if they ever were to announce a storm, she was staying home! In the basement!

And I agreed...


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