Top 10 Signs Your Peace Corps Service (and center of sanity?) Might Be Derailing

January 25, 2012 · Filed under General

It has struck me recently that I am beginning to behave differently than a few months ago.  Then it struck me that this is perhaps my own fault.  Then I decided, no, I am perfectly normal.  Then I realized I was having this debate out loud…with myself.  Then I knew I had to make this list:

Top 10 Signs Your Peace Corps Service (and center of sanity?) Might Be Derailing

1. You start going to events to which you are not invited and, upon attending events to which you are invited, you start giving impromptu speeches for which you are not asked.  Perhaps the more worrying trend is your shift in personal opinion that you may, actually, have something important to say.  This is highly unlikely.
2. You begin crying while reading Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel when you experience a fleeting notion that you have more in common with the misunderstood Creole lunatic held captive in the attic than with the mild-mannered Jane Eyre.  Your emotional fit, and the lack of bathing, do nothing to discredit this notion.
3. Ashamed (and slightly alarmed, but mostly ashamed, because you’re not going to do anything about it) of your steadily increasing Blueband consumption, you begin to stealthily buy the margarine-like (Vitamin A-enriched!) substance from alternating stores so as not to alert suspicion from any one single shopkeeper  You buy said-substance in 1-kg tubs.  You are not fooling anyone.
4. You save the number for one of your phones in the other phone under the name of “US Embassy” and furtively use the one phone to call the other during irrelevant meetings and awkward dinner engagements so that you can make polite excuses to step outside for a conversation with the ambassador of the Free World.
5. You have begun calling napkins “serviettes”, despite the fact that you have not used one in approximately two and a half years.  Why do those things keep coming up in conversation? 
6. Two of you are invited to dinner at a priest’s home and he thinks he’s bringing you a pleasant American surprise when he pulls out a deck of UNO cards.  You stare at the cards blankly and respond “I honestly cannot remember how to play that game.”  Your friend corroborates, “I don’t like playing games that require so much concentration.”  UNO is….hard. 
7. You accidentally wear your bathing sandals to work, where a manager of a 5-star lodge kindly reminds you that they are made out of an old tire and, hey wait a second, let’s rewind here…you bought sandals made out of an old tire!
8. Characters on The West Wing are not only becoming real people, but also real friends.  Someone is being a downer and you find yourself saying “Don’t be such a Toby!” or, in a funny situation, you think to yourself with a smile, “Donna would really laugh if she was here right now.”  Also, you’re pretty sure Bradley Whitford is waiting for you when you get home.  (a girl can dream!)  
9. You have used the same repetitive brain exercise to stay awake during 5-hour weddings, 3-hour pre-meeting waits, 2-hour church auctions and the like for about 30 months running—the result of which, of course, is that you can name all 44 U.S. Presidents, in order, in less than 40 seconds.   
10. It takes you several seconds too long and a far too stupid expression to understand why a group of foreigners you are with confuse the House of Love, an orphanage you have been working with for a year, for a den of prostitution.  Wait for it….wait for it….. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  That’s unfortunate.