They live peculiar lives out there in Hollywood, so here’s a little advice:
No matter how rough the neighbourhood, there’s no need to lock your automobile: it will have supernaturally sealed itself by the time you return with twenty gun-toting toughs at your back.
Don’t worry: while you fumble for the keys in your purse, the bad guys will decelerate long enough for you to get in your veehickel.
The car won’t start at first, but will miraculously come to life as the gangsters are rapping on the window. All of this time they will have been shooting at you, but you’ll be fine as American felons’ bullets bounce off everyone except the Love of Your Life.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: leave the Love of Your Life at home.
Be reassured: you will arrive safely at your dwelling: a huge house
with a huge yard that looks like a garden to British eyes, yet has no fencing.
Front doors are left unlocked at all times, in order to allow your many friends and relatives to enter at will. Access-at-will is no problem,
however, because no-one in America is ever burgled, except by the Federal Government.
If you have overnight guests, they must sleep on the couch, no matter
how large the house. Presumably because American parents never redecorate or re-use their children’s rooms – Monica’s parents in Friends being the notable exception – they keep them as a shrine to their children.
If you are a guest yourself, expect to wait a long time for a cup of tea because the electric kettle hasn’t been invented there yet. When your drink finally appears, remember: it is rude to remove the drawstring tea bag until you have drained the cup. If you favour coffee, you must drink it black because milk cartons are used only to drink straight from the fridge. It is considered polite to drain and return the empty carton to the ‘ice box’.
A few final points:
Knives do not come in cutlery sets, but in dead bodies.
Forks and spoons must be used in the right hand.
Always share utensils and cartons of Chinese food.
Post people wear shorts and go mad, but they will collect
your outgoing mail when they bring your incoming mail.
Do not mistake post boxes for trash cans.
Paper boys and girls are obliged to ride past your house
at speed whilst simultaneously hurling your newspaper
into the spray from your static hose.
You can choose your working hours so that you can visit with your friends but always have a cardboard box handy for when you are inevitably fired.
Don’t be sad or it will rain.
And finally: no problem is so great that it cannot be solved
by eating a large tub of ice cream.
Bon voyage.
Poetry Fluff 