Not From England

Jimmy and I went for a day out in the centrum today for some shopping and walking around. We were just walking in one of the stores, a departmental store called V&D, when we stopped to browse through some sweaters on a rack.

We didn't notice but there was a lady about 2 feet behind us and I suppose we stopped too abruptly and got in her way. We only realized when she heaved a loud sigh and shoved right past us!

Jimmy was pretty miffed and called out after her, "An 'excuse me' would be nice!". Then she turned around and retorted:

*brace yourself for this*

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"I Am Not From England!"

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Huh?!? Whaaaaa...??? Okay... It's just that I never knew that common courtesy was indigenous to England. I always just assumed that civility was practiced in all cultures. Hmmm... I've met a lot of wonderfully well-mannered and polite Dutch, so I'm don't really know where that lady was coming from...

I am not one who is easily rendered speechless but this one really did a good job of temporarily dumbing me. It took a couple of seconds before the statement really sank in and for me to come up with a few snarky remarks. I didn't manage to use any of them though, because Jimmy was ready to get into it further and I just told him "Don't stoop to that level" and he reluctantly let it go.

It's interesting how complex human nature is... Although unpleasant, it was definitely an eye-opening experience.