“Mom, she’s from America!!”

August 6, 2008


Today I participated in hearing aid repairs; a walk-in clinic in which patients can get their hearing aids repaired and have their questions addressed. I was helping fit an earmold on a 12 year old girl and when the audiologist stepped out of the room I started to visit with her. As soon as I spoke, her face lit up and she turned to her mom and exclaimed “mom, she’s from America!!” Her mom looked embarrassed but I just smiled and asked if she could guess where I was from in America. The girl replied with “Florida” as all English people think that Americans are from either New York or Florida and have no concept of where the other states are located. Then the girl asked if I had ever been to Disney Land and when I told her ‘yes’ she stated, with some regression, that she had only been to Disney Land Paris and really wanted to go to the Florida Disney Land. Then, she asked if I had ever swum with dolphins because, of course, America has dolphins and therefore people must swim with them. I told her ‘no’ but that I thought that it would be really fun. She then proceeded to tell me that her favorite star was from America…who else but Miley Cyrus. When I exclaimed “oh, from Hannah Montana?” the girl looked quite pleased that she and I had something in common. When it was time to go she thanked me profusely for her new sparkly earmold and then left telling her mom that she was going to call her friend and tell her that she “met an American!!”