Grumpy Old Man? Not me!

I would never consider myself to be a “grumpy old man”.  I believe I try to be pleasant to everyone (except to mean or rude people.  I have no tolerance for them).  But then again, I am from New York.  Now New Yorkers are actually friendly people.  Hollywood might have convinced the rest of the country that we are rude and competitive and would knock our own mother down if she got in our way.  But that is just not true at all.  Still, I realize that the adjustments I need to make for the overly friendly culture of Florida is happening too sloooowly for me.

I will give you a typical example:  When I lived on Long Island, if I needed to pick up a quart of milk at the grocery store, I was able to drive there, park, enter the store, find the dairy section, grab a quart container of milk, get in line at the check-out counter, pay for it when the cashier announced the total I owed, slip the quart into my grocery bag and leave the store – without actually saying a word to anyone.  And no one would think that odd.  But this is not possible in Florida.

In Florida, there are greeters at the entrance of the store.  “Hello, how are you? How is your day going so far? Can I get you a shopping cart or would you prefer a hand carry basket?”  You are going to be engaged in a conversation even before you begin shopping.  And God forbid that you are standing in an aisle of the store for about 1 minute and look like you cannot find what you want – a store clerk swoops down from Lord-knows-where to ask you if you need help finding something.  And if you do it is not enough for him to tell you which aisle and which shelf, he must take you there himself and find the item for you all the while striking up a conversation.  “Has your day gone well today? What do you think of this hot weather?  Is there anything else I can find for you?”  Then there is the checkout regimen.  No customer packs his own grocery bags in Florida.  In addition to the cashier there are packers.  And they want to know everything about your day and your later plans and where you are from (I guess my accent gives me away as an alien).  I even got invited once by a 17-year old checker to go with him and his friends after work to a bar-b-q if I didn’t have anything special planned!  OMG.  You see, in Florida they would consider it the very height of rudeness to not engage you in a conversation and to find out everything about you and try to become your new best friend – even if you are trying to concentrate on what the register’s barcode reader is charging for the items you have picked.  It is simply that way in Florida.  So I will continue to try harder, keep smiling, get to know everyone on a first name basis, and attempt to get into the Florida Friendly Groove.  I certainly don’t want anyone to think of me as a Grumpy Old Man.  Right?