Inconvenient conveniences

 America is full of them.  Bill Bryson in his uncanny ways showed us many of them and I can relate.  Bill wrote a book about his return from England where he spent two decades and then settled back in New Hampshire.

Book was aptly called 'I am a stranger here myself'.  In it he went on to point out many things that are normal in America and very convenient like an insinkerator. Sounds like an incinerator (google even spell check suggests the latter but it is not the same thing).

This is a disposal installed in most American kitchen sinks that can grind food waste if it enters the hole.  It also makes satisfying gurgling sounds as it digests solids and sends it to the drain.

Does not exist in other advanced countries.  True that.

But on the flip side Americans will also spend time looking for a closest parking spot at a gym only to stand on a rubber belt that goes round and round to walk off their extra fat from a quarter pounder with cheese.

Whilst securing said QP they will burn precious gasoline in fast food serving drive thru lanes because that is what their brain taught them to do.  No matter that the other guy (me) parked and went inside and got the food and ate it and left before the guy in the drive thru line even made it to the order window.  Eventually he went on to use his convenient large size cup holder in his oversize SUV (which sits largely empty) to place the high fructose corn syrup laced beverage so he could enjoy his calories one melting ice cube at a time.  Speaking of which ice cubes in drinks is also a very American thing.

I find it racist when in Indian food serving restaurants the servers (mostly of desi heritage) will give me water without ice without asking for my preference.  Same dude will provide a Caucasian person sitting at another table with iced water.  Huh?  Desis tend to not want ice in their drink as some sort of genetic mutation from where their parents did not 'get it' growing up in India.  Ice was not readily available to them (no refrigeration, no electricity no whatever) and it was considered unsafe due to the indeterminate nature of the water used to make one should some be available.

But to take it to the extreme and avoid it in America?  LOL.