Napkins and Serviettes: English... In It's Many Forms

My roommates are two delightful women. Sam is from South Africa and Lauren is from Colorado, USA. Now you would think we would have wonderful communication between the three of us since English is our first language. So imagine my surprise when Sam asked me if we had any 'serviettes'. Serviettes? This was a new word for me, form context I realized she was asking if we had any napkins. "A napkin?" I asked and she about died laughing. I could not for the life of me figure out why she thought that was so funny.... until she showed me the video below. 

We now use 'serviettes' in our apartment.