What do Americans do all day?

One of the unexpected joys I had last year was stumbling upon memoirs published in the 1950s by Americans living in Paris.  Many of the experiences are particular to that time period, but there are many that are still infinitely relatable to an American expat:  visits to the préfecture, for instance.   These books overflow with love for Paris as well as the misadventures of people adapting to life in a country set up differently from their own, especially one rebuilding and recovering from the deprivations of WWII as France was.  

One of these memoirs, Roughing it on the Rue de la Paix, was written by a lady who rents a room from a friend who is French, and after dealing with various plumbing issues and electricity outages and appliances that don't work, the American is feeling frustrated.  Her friend says:

"What do American women do all day?...We have something

to do all the time, because something is always out of order---

the lights, the plumbing, or something.  But in a country where

everything functions..."  She left her disdain in the air.

The disdain with which she looks down on the American expectation that things will work made me laugh.  I remembered this quote as I was driving back home from the grocery store this week.  I had to stop and wait for someone trying to parallel park in an area of town where there aren't any parking lots, while traffic swarmed around and pedestrians crossed the street.  

And I thought, What do Americans do all day with all their big free parking lots and no need to dodge pedestrians and other cars parked in the road?  😊