Patience

When Andy and I moved back to Washington--going on two years ago now, I started to notice something immediately when we got back here.
When I was at the grocery store--or any store.
When I was at the post office..
at church..
at the park..
in the parking lot..
at the bank...
Everywhere basically.
Patience.

He who loses it; loses.
That's it.

If a person is in a line anywhere here (people who are from here, vamos) and they have to wait a long time...they just do.
It is socially unacceptable to 1.huff or puff, or 2. make an ugly face, or 3. talk about the situation to the person behind you, or 4. switch lines...
No one here does these things, and if a person happens to lose patience, this person is labeled A HOT HEAD! AN IDIOT! AN A$$.
This was very interesting to me, and I am learning to do it. It takes practice, but after a while you are good at it, and you don't even have to actively control the huffing and puffing.
Here is one example.
The first summer we lived here this older man was buying several cases of wine at food lion and they had some deal going on.
The check out clerk counted them all--very slowly, and then rang them up--it was like 50 bottles or something, then he said the total. The older man said, oh no, it should have been this amnt. The difference was like 45 cents or something. BUT the clerk began the whole process over again.
I was thinking--bleep bleep, you are in the bleeping express lane, what in the bleep?
I looked around and no one else seemed to care AT ALL! Not a bit. They just stood there. No one said a word, no one switched lines...just stood there with the same looks on their faces.
So move ahead to now, when I was at the mall in durham with sissy one day recently the guy at the nordstom's counter was making my drink--he was busy, and he was going as fast as he could, and while he worked I journeyed off to {happy patient people land}. When I came to--my drink was ready and it was looking yummy.
When the guy handed it to me, he apologized. Funny, I thought, I was not even bothered by the wait!

It seems like to me the unofficial rule is when you live in a small town one of the worst things to be labeled might be "hot head" or "impatient" or here we say a person is acting, "ugly". There is no anonimity here...someone in one of those lanes knows EXACTLY who you are and whose you are..so you better be sweet. :)
When I lived elsewhere..there was not as much need for this. Most people in the triangle are anonomous..so being ugly --well no one much cares so expressing one's impatience is more acceptable.

Okay --nighty night..I am off to read a book,now.