the absurdity of it all

You’d think with all this traveling back and forth between Africa and the United States I would get used to the inevitable “culture shock” on re-entry into the states but still it catches me off guard. Perhaps it was that I was seated next to the “boss” of Aflac (giant “gap” insurance company) for the flight into Greenville, who has recently bought property at the Cliffs (highly exclusive, super expensive private housing up in the mountains) and was coming to play a few rounds of golf for the weekend while reading “Wine Enthusiast” magazine, wearing a Rolex watch that could feed a good size village in Botswana…or maybe it was the stupidity of evening TV as I struggled to stay up to at least 9 PM so that I can try to get over my jet lag as soon as possible (I was jumping between “Dr. 90210” where two sisters were getting breast augmentations so that they could continue to be “hot moms” at 26 and 30 years old and some sort of home shopping network that was selling mascara for $55!) What planet am I on? Because it certainly can’t be the same one I’ve been on for the last 3 ½ months.