CULTURE SHOCK

I always experience some low voltage culture shock whenever I return to the Midwest. Just the other day, I was walking around one of our many city lakes (while reading T.C. Boyle) and decided to stop in a gift shop on the way home. I was wondering the time and happened to notice a middle aged woman with a wristwatch. She was standing a few feet from me. I said, "Um, excuse me? Can you tell me the time?"

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but her immediate expression when I approached her, you would think I had just asked if I could I stick my little finger in her dog's ass.