YOU KNOW...

...YOU'RE A MISSIONARY KID WHEN:
(I was looking at some newslists and Yahoo groups I visit, and came across some of these. They made me laugh SO HARD. And if you aren't an MK, you probably won't understand. I clubbed together parts of a few lists, and selectively edited and emphasized some of them.)

You can't answer the question, "Where are you from?" (Amen, and amen. For the past ten years, I've tried to just say that I'm from the place wherever I'm living at the time. Now, I'm from Visalia. Check me out, a real Californian girl with an identity and everything.)
You think that barrels make good end tables and night stands.
011 is a familiar area code.
The vast majority of your clothes are hand-me-downs.
People send you underwear as a gift.
People send you used tea bags in the mail. (No joke, this really happened to us.)
You speak two languages, but can't spell either. (I speak more than two, and I can spell, but...)
You flew before you could walk.
The U.S. is a foreign country.
You embarrass yourself by asking what swear words mean. (Jeff had to explain some stuff to me after we were married.)
You have a time zone map next to your telephone.
You don't know how to play Pac-Man.
You consider a city 500 miles away to be "very close". (It's where you go to school.)
Your life story uses the phrase "Then we went to..." five times.
You prefer a Land Rover to a Lexus.
You watch nature documentaries, and you think about how good that would be if it were fried.
You can cut grass with a machete, but can't start a lawnmower.
You think in grams, meters, and liters.
You speak with authority on the quality of airline travel.
You go to the U.S., and get sick from a mosquito bite.
You worry about fitting in, and wear a native wrap around the dorm.
National Geographic makes you homesick.
You have strong opinions about how to cook bugs.
You read the international section before the comics.
You live at school, work in the tropics, and go home for vacation.
You don't know where home is.
Strangers say they can remember you when you were "this tall."
You grew up with a maid.
You sort your friends by continent.
You keep dreaming of a green Christmas.
"Where are you from?" has more than one reasonable answer. (Yet another on this theme.)
The nationals say, "Oh, I knew an American once..." and then ask if you know him or her.
You aren't terribly surprised when you do.
You are grateful for the speed and efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service.
You realize that furlough is not a vacation.
You wince when people mispronounce foreign words.
You've spoken in dozens of churches, but aren't a pastor.
Furlough means that you are stuffed every night... and have to eat it all to seem polite.
You realize that in Australia, the above statement would be very rude.
You commit verbal faux pas, as demonstrated in the above statement.
Someone bring up the name of a team, and you get the sport wrong.
You bundle up warmly, even in the middle of summer.
You know there is no such thing as an international language.
You quote Reepicheep: Adventures are never fun while you're having them.
You tell Americans that democracy isn't the only viable form of government.
You realize it really is a small world, after all.
You never take anything for granted.
Rain on a corrugated metal roof is one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.
You know how to pack.
All preaching sounds better on hard, wooden benches.
A musical instrument can be anything-- even bottle caps nailed to a board
You can amuse yourself for hours with cardboard boxes.
Fitting 15 or more people in a car seems normal to you.
You refer to gravel roads as highways.
You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.
You own personal appliances with 3 types of plugs, know the difference between 110 and 220 volts, 50 and 60 cycle current, and realize that a trasnsformer isn't always enough to make your appliances work.
You fried a number of appliances during the learning process.
Your parents' siblings are strangers to you, but you have 50-60 Aunts and Uncles who are no blood relation to you at all.
You get upset when people don't finish their food, and feel worse when they scrape it into the trash.
You don't think that two hours hours is a long sermon.
Your wardrobe can only handle two seasons: wet and dry.
You think nothing of straddling white lines to pass between trucks or buses travelling side by side, because "There was plenty of room, officer. Honest! At least six inches clearance."
Someone in your passport country has to explain to you that the double yellow line means *only* oncoming traffic can drive on that side of the road, even when there *isn't* any oncoming traffic. ...and you don't understand why.
The same individual also has to explain that red lights mean stop *all* the time, without exception, and you must stay stopped *until* they turn green, whether or not there is cross-traffic. ...and you still don't understand why.
Later the same day, the same poor friend has to go to great lengths to explain to you why you cannot just hand the policeman fifty cents and drive away when he stops you, and why you are now being driven downtown in the back of said officer's car over a mere fifty cents; at which point your passport country ceases to make any sense to you at all.
When you can't get past "Oh, say can you see..." in the national anthem, and you have to watch to see what hand to use.
You think the Pledge of Allegiance might possible begin with "Four-score and seven years ago...."
You listen to the latest hit on the radio and think "I wonder how that would sound on a thumb piano or a sitar?"
You feel odd being in the ethnic majority.
You go to the local Indonesian restaurant just to listen to the conversation.
You go to Taco Bell and have to put five packets of hot sauce on your taco.
You have a hard time living with a roommate who isn't a foreigner.
You really do enjoy Oriental folk music.
You marvel at the cleanliness of gas station bathrooms.
You instinctively start ripping up the newspaper when yo run out of toilet paper.
Your study of minor keys in music theory makes you homesick.
You have a name in at least two different languages, and it's not the same one.
You feel like you need to move after you've lived in the same place for a two months.
You cruise the Internet looking for fonts that can support foreign alphabets.
Riots make you homesick.
You have seen both the North Star and the Southern Cross, and you can navigate by either constellation.
You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.
Climates that get below about 72 F (20 C) are against your body's religion.
Someone asks you where you most enjoy just hanging out and you immediately think of happy hours spent in international airports.
In spite of your passport country's climate, your parents' influence, and your or their religious scruples, you have an unsurmountable aversion to clothing any more substantial than your average thong bikini bottom.
The thing that made you feel most at home when you returned to your passport country was the "new", "modern", body peircing and tatooing fad.
You go to a church you have never been in before and find your picture on their bulletin board. (Or go to a stranger's house and see your picture on the fridge.)
You actually look forward to the rare times the power goes off because it makes you feel nostalgic, *and* you might get a chance to see those stars that are still etched so vividly in your memory.
You automatically take off your shoes as soon as you get home.
You visit an Ancient History museum and see a display of tools and household implements that you have used often and may even still own. (Ditto with the tribal art display at an art or anthropology museum.)
Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around.
You consider a three year old piece of clothing to be "practically new."
You don't know whether to write the date as month/day/year, day/month/year, or some variation thereof.
You play tricks with the International Date Line.
You meet another MK, and discover that you share the same best friend.
The best word for something is the word you learned first, regardless of the language.
You still use those words, even if you know what they are in English.
There are times when only your family knows what you're saying.
You embarrass yourself publicly by automatically picking up and using what turn out to be not-so-palatable expressions. (Ask me some time about my initial understanding of "the world's oldest profession".)
You won't eat Uncle Ben's rice because it doesn't stick together.
You get mad at "minorities" complaining of discrimination when they have no clue as to what it's like to be a real minority.
Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you. (I'd call my mom in my office at work, and gaily chatter at her in Bahasa Indonesia.)
Your school was suspended or cancelled due to rain, political insurgents, or even military coup.
You watch a movie set in a foreign country, and you know what the nationals are REALLY saying into the camera.
You speak to different ethnic groups in their own language.
You get confused because American money isn't color-coded.
You can call up actual memories of a country while you're sitting in geography class.
You have the urge to move to a new place every couple of years.
You consider parasites, dysentery, or tropical diseases to be appropriate dinner conversation.
You read National Geographic and recognize someone. (Like, maybe, your parents.)
You wake up one day and realize you're not a foreigner anymore.
You wake up one day and realize you really still are a foreigner.

And you know you're an MK if you understood most of these.