Small town forces out McDonald's with good bread:

"I was afraid of McDonald's," he said in his bakery on Tuesday. "I was afraid we would be completely glossed over. I was afraid no one would even notice us."

For a while, McDonald's drew in the customers of Altamura. "In the beginning," Mr. Digesu said, "McDonald's was McDonald's."

But soon there was a migration of locals who preferred their own version of fast food: hunks of thick focaccia like the dozen that Mr. Digesu was tending in the oven as he spoke. Part of the reason seemed economic: Mr. Digesu said a big slice of focaccia cost the same as a single McDonald's hamburger. It was also, clearly, preference.

McDonald's began fighting back, offering school trips to visit the kitchens, free rentals of the restaurant for children's birthday parties, coupons for children and a television for customers to watch soccer. Nothing seemed to work.

"They'd watch the game, and as soon as it was over go out and get focaccia," Mr. Pepe said.

Finally, in December 2002, after less than two years in operation, the McDonald's closed shop, according to the company, for lack of profitability.

Kix...

Your kid's not hyperactive, just over-evolved:

Indigo children were first described in the 1970's by a San Diego parapsychologist, Nancy Ann Tappe, who noticed the emergence of children with an indigo aura, a vibrational color she had never seen before. This color, she reasoned, coincided with a new consciousness.

In "The Indigo Children," Mr. Carroll and Ms. Tober define the phenomenon. Indigos, they write, share traits like high I.Q., acute intuition, self-confidence, resistance to authority and disruptive tendencies, which are often diagnosed as attention-deficit disorder, known as A.D.D., or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D.

Indigos

Shit, they couldn't have picked a different color?

Does that make them winters?

I don't think I've ever been asked for ID with a credit card.

Since I moved to NC, I get asked for ID all the time - like probably 85% of the times I use a card, I get asked for ID.

I don't remember MI so much, but here my debit card has my photo on it, and it's forestalled a number of requests for photo ID -- I guess that could work with the no name thing. My "real" credit card--as I said, when not eating out, it's about 50-50.

I hate to say this, but asking for ID with credit cards is often racially motivated. I get asked for ID a lot more with my platinum card than with my regular debit card. Of course, I always ask why they need ID and enjoy the squirm. OTOH, I got shirty with a guy once, and he pointed out that I hadn’t signed the back of the card. Oops.

But she got tired of being accused of being racist when she would ask to see ID.

That's because it's often the case. I pay attention. If the person in front of me was asked, I don’t say anything. However, it’s not uncommon for the person of non-color in front of me to use a credit card without incident, but they ask me for ID or compare the signature.

I don't mind being asked for ID, since it's something I feel they should do--even if they're applying it racistly (and I have no information to support this in my case), I highly prefer it to something useless being wielded in the same cause.

Since I moved to NC, I get asked for ID all the time - like probably 85% of the times I use a card, I get asked for ID.

Now I'm cynically wondering if it's your accent that's convincing the salespeople "you're not from here" hence they'd better ask for ID.

It's not even noon, and already I've had the classic "you can't have it because it doesn't exist" and "no, I didn't send you the wrong thing, you requested the wrong thing and I am not psychic" conversations.

Joy.

That's a good question, Theo. I had assumed that maybe NC had some fraud/consumer protection statute that requires them to ask, but maybe it's me. I'll have to pay more attention. It's weird though - it never happened to me before I moved here, but it happens almost every time here.