Skip to main content

TIFU By throwing trash in an abandoned lot in front of my MIL

I’m Paraguayan and my husband is Uruguayan. We don’t usually have big cultural shocks, but this one really made us laugh.

I was having lunch with my husband and my MIL. I chopped half a watermelon to have as dessert, while we were chatting, I just casually threw the whole green part (the rind) into the backyard. Behind our rental there’s an abandoned lot filled with greenery, birds, frogs, and possums. In Paraguay (or at least on my circles), it’s totally normal to toss bread, watermelon, papaya and melon leftovers outside, we leave a bit of the fruit part on the rind, because the birds like it more.

My husband and MIL looked at me like I had just dumped a TV out the window. He couldn’t believe I’d “throw our trash” into the lot. I told them it’s not regular trash, it’s biodegradable, and the animals love it! He was still unsure, checking the backyard like crazy. After a few minutes they were both amazed at how many animals started to emerge and even fight for it, he was still checking the next few days and saw it was completely gone in less than a week. He was relieved to see I wasn’t just littering, I was actually feeding the wildlife.

They now tease me and toss fruits every time my MIL visits, LOL I was so used to this that it never even crossed my mind it could be a cultural thing. I honestly thought everyone did that.

TL;DR: I threw a watermelon in my backyard thinking it was normal but it was actually just in my culture

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TIFU by forgetting my purse and attempting to get fuel

Not the craziest story but hey. I'm obligated to say this was a few months ago but I cringe every time I go past the petrol station . My petrol was getting low, not dangerously so but it said 27 miles left, (oftentimes it then suddenly drops to about 16 for example, and then 5 and then 0 very fast) I didnt have my purse on me as I just didn't need it... Picked my daughter up from school and then went on to collect my 2 stepdaughters from across town and then set off for home. En route the gauge went to 7 and then suddenly it was 1 so I stopped at the petrol station near our house. The petrol was on 0 as i pulled up to the pump and that's when I realised I had no money. I left the kids in the car at the pump and went in to talk to the cashier, it wasn't mega busy but there was a queue, I'd heard that they can help you if you can't pay for fuel. Like keeping something of yours as security. It was an elderly man and he basically refused to help. At this point i...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU - Don’t do what I did

On Sunday morning Aug. 24th, I awoke to discover a large blind spot in my right eye, which turned out to be what is called wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It has resulted in a very significant, permanent loss of vision in that eye. Although I maintain good peripheral vision, whatever I focus on at best is very blurry, and mostly disappears. I can barely make out the large E at the top of the eye chart. If this happens to my left eye I’ll be unable to read or drive. It turns out that I missed the opportunity that I had to prevent this from becoming a serious problem because I failed to report what appeared to be minor changes in my vision. In the weeks prior to August I had noticed that what I knew to be straight lines appeared to my right eye to have a little waviness. I also noticed that the color of my front lawn, which I could see through the window from my recliner,  was subdued, looked almost gray, in my right eye. So I scheduled an eye exam, which revealed the p...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by getting suspended for 2 days by my front office in school.

I (13M) am an African American student at Jeannette junior high who had got suspended for 2 days here. I was in math class minding my business until my teacher had told me to go to the main office, which posed no problem to me. As i went down there, the people of the front office had stopped me and made me get a new ID (yes, we have id's.) so i had asked them if i could maybe do a different alternative and call my mother to let her bring the Id here, even then, the Id isn't that important. So, although i was talking to them in a calm manner and not showing any signs of rebellion, they had threatened to call the police on me without thinking twice before calling my parents. This is where i started getting angry, and even then now the black peers agree that could have been a racially motivated action. They then told me to sit in the office conference room because of that, leading into more anger. They had then called my mother who had came over to the school didn't even let ...
Post a Comment
Read more