I've not much had that experience in checkouts and I've lived my whole life in the south. In fact, the only time I really can say it's happened is when it's a local rural store or neighborhood store, and then it's just catching up with neighbors.

I mean it's not something you're likely to run into at Kroger or Target or something.

Interesting. When I was in New Orleans, I would get that pretty frequently at drugstores and convenience stores and places like that. I don't remember it happening too often at grocery stores, but I didn't really go to grocery stores that much.

Interesting. When I was in New Orleans, I would get that pretty frequently at drugstores and convenience stores and places like that.

Those are neighborhood stores by nature. People don't drive out to another neighborhood to go to a convenience store, so it's likely the same people all the time.

Even here, the 7-11 several blocks up is our neighborhood convenience store, and lord knows those people know when I'm out of coffee at the house, when Jon and I are hungover, sometimes even when we've had a fight (one of my ways to have us both calm down until we can listen to each other is to go to that store, nose around and maybe get an icee and a trash magazine).

MM, you totally have to pitch to the Beeb. And I want to sit in on the meeting.

So it's not Americans, it's non-Southern/Western Americans.

That's pretty much what The Girl just said when she called and I relayed Shir's comment. She says Houston, where she (partly) grew up, is nothing like New York. Most of my experience of the US is of New York. So I may be generalizing far too widely.

But we Brits take politeness to a whole other level of repression.

You know, I think I'm just a little sensitive to the cultural stereotype, because the way it's usually portrayed is Stupid Southerner yammering on about unimportant stuff while Important Person With Important Things to Do is irritated.

Give me self-serve kiosks and security lines where everyone knows the drill. Oh, and free wireless. But that's not really part of this point.

Oh, but it could be! They should offer it, just no offline instructions. Then, if you can't figure out free wireless, you can't have it.

You know, I think I'm just a little sensitive to the cultural stereotype, because the way it's usually portrayed is Stupid Southerner yammering on about unimportant stuff while Important Person With Important Things to Do is irritated.

Yep. Me too. Though I'm in an irritable mood today.

I remember when my brother's girlfriend flew from New Jersey to Illinois to meet the family. She'd never been to the Midwest before, and was blown away when the moneytaker at the parking garage wished us a Merry Christmas. She thought it might be a fluke, but then it happened again at the toll booth, and later at the grocery store, and she was convinced that all midwesterners were the nicest people on Earth.

You know, I think I'm just a little sensitive to the cultural stereotype, because the way it's usually portrayed is Stupid Southerner yammering on about unimportant stuff while Important Person With Important Things to Do is irritated.

And on the opposite side, anyone who tries to just get in, get out, and get on with life is a typical rude New Yorker.

Which, I don't think is going on here, let me clarify. I think there are plenty of people here with people aversion that I don't think that particular stereotype is what they're talking about.

She says as a person who once upon a time could not order for herself at freaking McDonald's.

Sometimes I connect to people's computers to help them, and I sometimes see odd things. Other times I hear people rapidly closing out of files as I start the connection. Lots of folks use kids' pictures as backgrounds. This guy had a nice picture of Stonehenge. Then I notice the icon next to my cursor: Free Porn Downloads. I give him the benefit of the doubt, then I see the two folders marked X-Rated Videos along with some .wmv files with possibly suggestive names. Interspersed with these are several business files and folders. I was highly amused and quietly moved my cursor away from the highlighted porn icon so as not to incur difficult conversations.

Obviously a very independent contractor who doesn't have to answer to a company IT person as to what's on the work computer.