Cultural Blunders You Never Even Imagined Making

So.

The other day, Sean and I went to the post office to buy stamps and mail a few postcards.

Simple task. Right?

Not! Not at all!

We jostled our way to the front of the line and got through the buying of the stamps in relative calm. I mean, we were being watched and stared at the whole time, but that's become pretty natural to us by now. We sorta stand out. I can't say that I blame them. You'd stare at a buffalo if it walked into your antelope herd and tried to act all antelope-y, wouldn't you?

Of course you would. Bad analogy, but of course you would.

Anyway, once we had our stamps, we wanted to just quickly put them on the postcards and get out of there. It becomes somewhat unnerving to be the object of a roomful of stares and we were ready to move on. Sean and I scooted out of the way of the other post office patrons, divided up the postcards and stamps and began licking away.

We licked the stamps and affixed them to the postcards. This is what we've always done our whole lives. Tell me why this wouldn't be okay?

I quickly became aware of twittering behind hands and glanced up to find everyone that could see us chuckling and sharing disbelieving glances with one another. Sean and I continued to smile and lick our stamps while saying under our breath to each other, "Maybe this isn't okay, these people are really freaking out."

"Is it okay to lick stamps in public?"

"I don't know, but people burp in public. What's offensive about licking a stamp?"

"They sure are staring, though."

"Just smile at them and let's get out of here."

If we weren't already drawing a crowd, we definitely were now. In my attempts at being a little less conspicuous and a little more culturally sensitive, I began licking my finger and then wetting the stamp that way but this only brought on more snickers.

We were at a complete loss of what to do so we powered through the 20-some stamps we had and tried to ignore the stares, chuckles, and pointing behind hands. 20-some stamps never took so long to get through in my life.

When we were finally done, we handed over our now-stamped postcards and turned to leave. We made our getaway out of a side door - I do believe I heard Sean say behind me, "Aaaand, exit stage left."

Apparently, licking stamps is a no-no. Why nobody ever thought to give us this vital tidbit of information, I'll never know. One of our teachers explained to us that in Indonesia, you are supposed to ask for some water and/or glue for affixing the stamps. Nobody ever, ever licks a stamp in public. And they don't lick their finger in public, either, apparently.

We're so out of our element here.