It probably wasn’t the wisest decision to go to Costco just two days before Christmas to do a bunch of grocery shopping, but well, we did that today. Since Costco has come to Australia, the people Down Under have really embraced it: when we were exiting the car park just past 11am this morning, the queue of cars to get into Costco stretched farther than my eye could see. And of course, as each Costco has local goods for its local markets, you also see things here that you would never see in the U.S., such as Arnott’s Tim Tams, Dilmah tea bags, an endless and enticing selection of Australian shirazes from as far as Western Australia to South Australia, and lots of local seafood, such as barramundi, Tasmanian salmon, scallops on the half shell, and lobster from the Indian Ocean.

While in the produce section of Costco today, I asked for assistance from an employee since Chris’s mom had requested jalapenos and pomegranates, but I wasn’t able to find them. One of them told me that they had run out, and immediately, I heard her American accent. As I thanked her and wished her merry Christmas, she stopped me and asked if I was American, and I told her I was. We talked a bit: she shared that she had been living here for seven years already and was loving it. She came with her husband and two young kids for her husband’s work; since then, they’ve had two more kids and have zero intention of ever going back to the U.S.

“It’s so addictive being here!” She exclaimed enthusiastically. “You really get used to the lifestyle here and how much more relaxed it is. And also, I just don’t feel safe raising my kids in the U.S. How can you when it seems like every day, there’s a school shooting?!”

I always think of that in the back of my mind as the reason that most Americans (with kids) who leave the U.S. for other countries don’t want to move back. I told her I completely understood her view point, and that I had a toddler who had sadly already experienced lockdown procedures at her former daycare/school.

“That’s disgusting that kids that young would have to go through that!” the American Costco employee retorted.

During conversations like these, there’s really nothing you can say or do to defend the U.S. You just kind of have to sit in the contemplation of how deeply disturbing and awful American society has become, to think that school shootings are just another part of living there.