Adjustment Reflections: I just want a hamburger

In his book, I am a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson relays the store about how, when he first arrived, going to restaurants was quite a shock for him. I have been there.

I have gone to a few nice restaurants since I have been back, and for me, used to my solitary, into the fast food restaurant and out to be devouring food in front of the TV in five minutes routine of dining, I was excited to go out and actually sit at a sit-down restaurant. Arriving at the restaurant, apparently ever staff person whose path you cross was under military orders to greet you with their best Cheshire-cat grin, with at least three or four people adamantly welcoming you, apparently from their ears because their mouths were cranked open in so big a false grin that talking seemed entirely too laborious a task, if not an impossible one. Sitting down, the server whisks a jar of water to your table with the cheer a midwife must feel when delivering a new born baby to its mother's arms. After the ten minute obligatory introductions (Hello, my name is Jane and I am originally from Boston, but I came here to test my luck in the firefly catching industry, but decided that I needed some kind of education first, so I took this job to help offset the costs of my classes, living expenses and firefly catching equipment, because the university doesn't offer competitive scholarships in our department, and I will be your waiter tonight...), I just wanted to cut her off and order my hamburger before she even got the chance to ramble off tonight's specials and ask if this was my first time in the restaurant, what profession I dedicated my life to (what would have happened if I said truthfully, "unemployed") , if I had ever vacationed in Tahiti and to inform me that the kitchen staff would be around shortly to take requests of which traditional Irish jig I would like them to preform. When I do end her mid-sentence, she just smiles and says, "Ok, just a hamburger" and eventually accepts, smiling none the less, that I am a social inept, incapable of sharing anything about myself.

And even on the street, people seem to take an unhealthy interest in others' lives. People on the bus know at least one other rider and ask questions like "How's Rita, your second cousin twice removed?" One bus rider asked me what I had bought at Wal-Mart and looked confused when I didn't offer a show-and-tell.

It's all done with a smile, and I know that it is just a part of our culture, especially here in the Midwest, but sometimes I just want to catch them off-guard by saying "homicidal" when they smile at me in that "how are you?" questioning sort of way, and other times I want to put a sign on my book that says "I am reading this uninteresting article with a look of enthrallment so that you don't ask every detail of my life while we ride on this bus¨ just to get it across that if you don't really care to know (which you don't), don't ask. So pervasive is this attitude of ask-but-don't-really-care that even at my job, as I was editing a "Hello Handbook", a guide of sorts on American culture and academia in general that we offer for new international students at the University, I come across a tip that says (and I quote): "In the United States, people often say, 'Hi, How are you?' or 'How are you doing?' This is a polite phrase, like saying 'Hello' and is usually not meant as a question in which you would tell them all of your feelings for the day."

And I understand that people do genuinely want to hear "fine" and genuinely introduce themselves because it is more familiar, but I just want a hamburger. This familiarity leads to a feeling of warmth and June Cleaver-ish happiness, but it also leads to the falseness that many Americans have bought into that life always has to be happy, or at least happy enough that you want to share it with others, this falseness that covers anything bad. This is why it frustrates me. It's AMERICAN KITCH!!!

So here is my ambiguous ending, with no exortations, no rants, no positive encouragement, no clear opinions. I don't want to say that I have caved in and can comfortably smile, nod my head or say "hey" to every passer-by, but I don't want to discredit some people's genuine cheerfullness as cultural falsity. So in good adjusting fashion, I will end with that I just want a hamburger. As to my opinion, I will keep that to myself and you will just have to smile and accept it.