"What Country You From?"

This weekend, we took the girls to a local pond for some ice skating. Actually, I did all of the ice skating and the girls sat in their little wooden sled and went for rides around the ice.

It was all very Norman Rockwell of us.

While there, a man walked past us and and told me I looked like I was from the Netherlands. Was it because I was pulling my child on an adorable, old-fashioned wooden sled (thanks, Aunt Brenda!) instead of some hideous, fluorescent pink, plastic monstrosity?

I might think so, except this wasn't the first time I've been accused of not being a native in my own country.

First time was in college. I was with a big group of students, on our way to a camping trip in Joshua Tree. On the way, we stopped at a market in the absolute middle of nowhere to load up on supplies. The market was a big grocery store, and almost entirely Mexican. Mexican products on the shelves, Mexican employees speaking only in Spanish, even the music pumping out over the store's speakers was in Spanish.

When we got to the check-out, the bagger took one look at me and said, "What country you from?"

I was like: "What country is THIS?"

Second time was in Atlanta. Jeremy had just started grad school at Georgia Tech and I sat on the floor in the school bookstore, killing time, flipping through a book. A cleaning guy pushed his vacuum over toward me and said, "What country are you from?"

Me: "This one!"

So what is it about me that inspires people to assume I'm a foreigner? My too-pale, Nordic skin? My proclivity for unusual hats? My bizarre, un-American behavior?

I'd like to think it's the fact that I'm so cosmopolitan and cool that other Americans assume I must be From Somewhere Else.

But I think it's most likely the hats.
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