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.

I had a discussion with a cashier in Kroger about the milk I was buying. Granted I got some good information out of it.

Let's not forget what happens when Aimee goes to the grocery store.

She flips off the cashier!

ETA: See *that* might be considered rude anywhere.

You bring a camel?

Now if only my fellow shoppers would learn how to fucking USE THEM, I'd be golden.

Given that it seems like waaaayyyy too many people haven't figured out how to use ATMs (including a friend who always loses his card because he's used to the machines that give you the card back right away and the other types confuse him), I hold out little hope of them mastering the self-checkout kiosk.

I was explicitly taught as a child (like, we had actual discussions about this in school) that, if you're buying something or conducting some other business that requires waiting on a line, and there are people on line behind you, then it's rude to take any more time than just the amount you need to get done whatever you need to do. Standing around chatting with the cashier while there are people behind me waiting to buy things just feels so wrong.