Things Americans Don't Get #1 and #2 in a series of 1,000,000

For the first 24hrs of each visit to America, which ultimately I enjoy, I find myself at the wrong end of my love-hate relationship with the population at large. It is not about being British (or European) and therefore right. It is about being right, period (as they say here), about doing things better.

#1 When did Americans lose the use of their arms and hands? How CAN they stand at the supermarket till, watch the shopping going through and do absolutely f**king nothing towards packing it? They might feel I suppose that they are depriving the invariably slightly deficient packer of a role but that role is a prime example of job creation where none is needed. Quite apart from anything else shopping should be packed coherently, for example keeping the chilled items together, not just randomly hurled item by item into countless carrier bags. It is perhaps because the mental capacity of the shopper would frequently not challenge that of the packer, not to say that they have no social awareness whatsoever that they are completely oblivious to the fact that their minutes of entirely avoidable inertia keep everyone else waiting longer. The only thing that comes out of my tortured minutes in Ralphs is my Mum gets more bin liners.

#2 Elsewhere and in many shops Americans just don't get Chip and PIN. Perhaps they won't do it because they didn't invent it. They will however ID you for a crummy $30 and that is supposed to be security. They find this acceptable because there is a widespread belief even in established tourist areas that no-one in America could possibly be not American and that they therefore all carry ID and bank with American banks. So there is almost universal use still of signatures with all the risk that entails but, ironically, there is also widespread use of those electronic tablets to sign on (the kind UPS use in the UK when they don't give a shit who they're giving a parcel to). Those tablets are completely incapable of accepting anything resembling a person's actual signature thus rendering the signing process completely useless.

I'll probably calm down soon. I am severely jet-lagged and disoriented but there was so much we had to do on arrival in Palm Springs.