zimbits prompt: the two of them discovering the weird "wait how have you not done/tried this before?" things. Mostly just discovering the weird little things/differences of their upbringing that they thought were universal?
Like, idk:
bitty: "you've never had chips ahoy before?"
jack: "the presidents choice decadent chocolate chip cookie is better, it's really popular in canada"
bitty: "i thought y'all had a prime minister"
(A LEGIT CONVERSATION I'VE HAD WITH AN AMERICAN FRIEND)
i love love love this! and have included a few examples in nmhs, mostly family stuff (making peas fly, thunder/god farts, timbits hockey, etc. etc.), and there will be some more in an upcoming fic, that's all about jack showing bitty québécois culture ("you really... don't know what a crazy carpet is?")
(most of these are québécois stuff... i'm not well versed in southern culture, sorry! :( )
you can bet one day they'll be receiving the guys at jack's apartment and jack, in charge of snacks, will be standing in front of the chips at the grocery and will call bitty going, "where the hell are the ketchup chips?" - "the... what now?" - "the ketchup chips?!" - "are you okay, honey? we have ketchup, I just asked for chips."
jack believes at that point that he has entered another dimension. or that he hit his head bad at practice. he asks the clerk who looks at him like he's crazy. and then he googles it, and finds out that ketchup chips are apparently only a thing in canada. that's... sad.
bitty bakes a ding dong cake and jack goes, "ha, a big jos louis" - "oh, god, what now?"
jack can't drive stick. bitty chirps him all the time about it. (can you also imagine jack showing up at the driving exam in alicia's bmw? because taking bob's maserati might have been a bit on the nose.)
one day, bitty's french teachers asks him if he's practicing with a québécois person. "yeah! does it show that much?" - "actually, eric, i had to take a few points off your exam, because you kept writing the verbs in question form wrong. you can't say tu veux-tu, or vous voulez-tu."
so bitty comes back at the apartment and he corners jack. "you've been teaching me all wrong!" - "i- how?" - "look at this!" and jack looks at bitty's exam, and goes oh. (he hasn't even noticed he was saying it that way. which is how everyone speaks, but the grammatical equivalent of writing you do you want to go eat something?)
bitty drops jack for him to vote in the canadian elections, one day. "wait for me, it'll be five minutes." and three minutes later, jack is walking back towards the car. "line too long?" - "no," jack says, "I voted." - "lord, did you answer all the questions?" - "I answered the one question which was about who I would like to vote for, yes."
they're at a fair one day and bitty does one of this shooting booth games, picks up the toy gun and fires in three quick succession with deadly aim. jack doesn't know if he's scared or aroused. bitty gives him the big plush penguin he wins. ("of course I know how to shoot, honey!")
bitty prepares an elaborate feast for the first of july and jack is like, "okay, but why?" - "it's... canada day?" - "oh, right." (we don't really celebrate canada day in québec, but saint-jean, which is the 24th of june)
other food stuff: jack asking bitty if they could make nun farts. bitty stares back at him. "is that a weird sex thing?" - "no, bits, they're... nun farts. a... pastry?" (jack means pets de soeur, you'll have to trust me on this one, friends, it truly is a québécois-only thing)
"what about... unemployed pudding?" - "are you having a stroke, sweetie?" (pudding chĂŽmeur, or, as I once called it in german class, arbeitsloss pudding, trust me on this one as well)
both bitty and jack have absolutely disgusting comfort foods the other doesn't get. for jack, it's probably fĂšves au lard (beans with bacon?). bitty is probably one of those salads with cream or
bitty keeps setting the oven and microwave timer in 12hrs, jack in 24hrs.
"it was super hot," jack says, "like, 26 degrees." and bitty believes him, because you know what? 26 degrees fahrenheit is believably warm for jack.
("it doesn't matter, sweetie, because the oven is in fahrenheit and the oven is always right.")
"if you use metrics," bitty asks, "why do you say you're six-foot tall?" and jack blanks at that.
jack chuckles. "did you never get stuck as a kid with your tongue on a metal pole in the winter?" and bitty stares back at his deranged boyfriend.
when raising their kids, they'll probably have that discussion at some point where jack will be, "hey, he's seventeen, he can have a glass of wine." and bitty looks back at him, "no?!" - "yeah, why not, he can drink next year, so-" - "he has to be twenty-one jack, it's twenty-one over here." - "bittle... you know that's crap."
they definitely have different experiences, but some experiences are universal. the complete line dance choreography to cotton eye joe, that is.
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