Whenever a friend of mine comes back from the United States, I hear some things that to me sound totally ridiculous. Maybe it's just me but many things simply don't seem to make any sense at all.

Prices in shops


When you go shopping, the price you see on an item is actually not the real price you pay at checkout. Some taxes are added to it. Why couldn't they be added on the price tag? I guess why should things be made easy if they could be complicated.

Tipping culture with no tips


Tips should be something you give to your waiter or waitress for their good job or good food or whatever else. But it should be optional. Yet in the states you are EXPECTED to tip them. And a exact amount. A friend of mine mentioned that he went to a restaurant and before leaving he also left a 10 percent tip. They had just started to leave when the waitress ran after them and told them to stop walking and said they had only left her a 10 percent tip while 15 or 20 percent is the normal amount. That's not normal. That's simply ridiculous. If you NEED to tip, then the tip should be included in the price. It's as easy as that.

The shopping cars


People in America are very overweight, because of the food portions obviously. But if you wanted to make things worse, you will do your best to make sure that people wouldn't even have to walk even in the supermarkets.

Food portion sizes


A good friend of mine went to America, being a tall skinny guy. He had never been able to gain much weight independent of eating lots and drinking even more. A year in the states and he managed to gain 10 kilograms. He said that even if you do try to eat healthy, even if you order a salad, you get it on an enormous plate and it's simply huge. Not to mention their XXXXXXL burgers and similar.

Drinking age


The legal drinking age in the United States is 21. While I'm not saying that drinking is good and I'm not even saying that the number should be lower, but based on a few other age limits, it's simply ridiculous. You need to be at least 17 to join military, you can go to Afghanistan and get killed. But drinking? Noooo, that's bad for you.

Drive-through everything


In most countries, you might have a McDonald's drive-through. But in the land of the weird you might even see drive-through wedding chapels, drive through liquor, ammunition stores, Starbucks. Even a drive-through ATM.

The American Flag


While in many countries it's considered disrespectful to wear your country's flag on clothing, be it shorts, jeans or a bathing suit, in the states they use it for everything. Wouldn't be surprised to see it on toilet paper.

And that's all before we even mention the name Trump.