I stare blankly at the wide array of options in front of me and blink. As my eyes race over the different brands, waves of questions flood my brain. What is a wiener? Who is Frank? How can a sausage possibly be vegetarian?! Organic sausages…what does that even mean? Wait — is a sausage the same thing as a hot dog? I realize my seemingly undemanding trip to Target is going to be incredibly arduous.

Buying sausages in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the country I most recently lived in, meant sticking your hand into a medium-sized fridge and grabbing whatever you could find. The brand did not matter. In fact, you would be lucky if you even recognized a brand. And the options? You were given two: chicken or beef. So as you might imagine, coming to the United States for the first time and encountering the fact that you can find thousands of options to buy something as simple as a sausage is mind-blowing to me.

“American” brands were introduced to me in unconventional ways. When I lived in Vientiane, Laos, the restaurant chain KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) was actually Khovieng Fried Chicken, named after the street it was located on. Instead of the classic counter-top style ordering system, chicken would be cooked on massive jet-black woks in front of your eyes and served to you in a Styrofoam box.

In Kathmandu, Nepal, “VASN," the equivalent of the shoe brand Vans, would be sold on corner shops at the ends of streets for just $5 by vendors who would religiously tell you that their “new design” was “the next big thing in Amreeka.”  In Dhaka, I would find the iconic red and yellow McDonald’s “M” on top of signs that read Maagdonalds or Murg Donald's. Though I’m still not sure if the blatant lack of originality was actually illegal, these mimic brands were my first real exposure to popular brands found in the United States.

Now, as I come face-to-face with all the names I’ve only heard “renditions” of, I can’t help but feel beautifully overwhelmed.

I return to the "Frozen Meat" section still intimidated by the variety of options of sausages and confused by all the names on the boxes. Employing a strategy I know all too well, I stick my hand in and pull out the first thing I see. “Frank’s Organic Garlic Herb Sausages,” I read.

Sighing in defeat, I convince myself that I’ll just buy sausages some other time.