I have become a victim of an odd cultural hangup for which I can thank the glorious multicultural society where I live in middle of The Diversity.
The first incident happened maybe two years ago. I went to buy gas at a Sikh gas station, and I sort of threw down the money like I was always did. He got very upset at me, grabbed the money, and said, “Don’t do that!” like it was a horrible insult. I figured it must be some weird cultural hangup that these Sikhs or Indians have about throwing down money. Apparently it is horribly insulting to throw down money when you buy something.
A long time went by before the second incident. At another gas station that I go to a lot is this very difficult and weird Sikh guy who often won’t even admit he is a Sikh, acts rude and weird half the time and is very hard to predict the other half of the time. I threw down the money like I always do, and he got furious, grabbed the money, and said, “Do it again you will never come back here again!” Ok, I get it. I did the money throw down thing again. Violated some weird Indian manners thing. I shook my head and walked out.
About a month later, which means today, I went to buy gas early in the morning at Weird Sikh Asshole’s station. I forgot and threw the money down like I always do. He flipped out, grabbed the money, shoved it back in my face and ordered me out of the store.
I seriously thought about stealing a food item right in plain sight as I walked out of the door. I can’t remember the last time I have been thrown out of a store. I am not sure if it has happened even once in my entire life.
I really think that if someone is such an asshole that he throws you out of a store for doing nothing wrong, you really need to steal a small inexpensive item on the way out. Do it openly. Grab the item, hold it up, look back at the guy who just threw you out, give him a huge grin, and yell, “Hi! I am stealing this, ok? Bye now!”
Because paybacks.
I doubt if anything would happen. If a cop stopped you, he would probably think it was stupid and might let you go. If he presses it, give the cop the $2-3 to cover the cost of the item and say here, I am paying him back. I very much believe in paybacks in life. Aggression should be answered with aggression. Assholery ought to have some serious repercussions for those who practice it.
Because karma.
I am never going back to that store again, obviously. There are now ~3 Sikh or Pakistani gas stations I mostly refuse to patronize because the owners are such assholes. Which is odd.
In most towns I have lived in, I generally never refused to patronize any business, much less a gas station, due to poor service. There were a few rare exceptions, but when I told people I was never going back to that asshole’s store again, and if I ever saw him on the street I was going to punch him, everyone would start laughing and say,”Oh, him! He’s the biggest asshole in town! Everyone hates him! Welcome to the club!”
Business was always at least polite at every regular gas station I attended, but then they generally weren’t run by dicks from India. They were run by White people or Arabs, and both act orders of magnitude better than Indians.
I have no idea what is wrong with these South Asians, except maybe in that hellhole, all the store owners are complete assholes, and there are no bad consequences for being a dick. In other words, you either deal with assholes behind the counter or you don’t go shopping. The stores don’t worry about losing customers because all the competition treats customers like shit too.
Whereas here in the USA, the customer is king and he is always right.
I must say that I resent the fact that every damn gas station in my town has been taken over by a Race of Assholes. Where am I supposed to buy gas?
You can still go to most of the gas stations because a lot of the subcontinentals act pretty good. Also many places hire Hispanics to work the registers, and they are always very nice and easy to deal with, so even though the owner may be a Subcontinental asshole, you never have to deal with curry-breathed annoying ass
I would like to add though that much as it is nice to be respectful of every culture’s petty little hangups, that gets pretty hard to do in a silly multicultural society. So you live in a big city where they are maybe 100-200 different ethnic groups, most of them fresh off the boat. Obviously each group has a bunch of weird etiquette and manners rules particular to their culture. Trust me, there are thousands of ways to insult someone, and most of them you have never even heard of!
Now how am I supposed to remember a Miss Manners book for every little penny-ante tribe in my city? More importantly, why the Hell should I? Granted, if I went overseas, I might buy one of those cultural etiquette books they sell and brush up.
But why the Hell should I suck up to weird, un-American etiquette rules that belong to some culture halfway around the world? I resent that. You come to my damn country, you get rid of your silly manners from wherever you came from or at least practice them in private and don’t force your cultural bullshit on the rest of us. I don’t care if it’s an insult in Timbuktu. You don’t live in Timbuktu anymore, pilgrim. You live in America. You follow our cultural rules now, and you don’t force yours on the rest of us. When in Rome and all of that.
Of course this is the essence of assimilation, the tried and tested way of integrating into a new culture. Humans have decided on assimilation because nothing else works. “When in Rome” is probably a saying going back 2,000 years. But the new world of multiculturalism turns millennia of human learning and experience on its head. Multiculturalism says no one has to assimilate anymore. No, really, it actually says that. Look it up in a dictionary.
500 different ethnic groups come to the US in floods, and not one of them has to assimilate to our culture. They get to keep on acting like they are in Ulan Bator or Tripoli or wherever. But that is not going to make sense. Only assimilation is rational. Saying no one has to assimilate, and immigrants get to keep their strange cultures in new lands forever, is frankly insane.
Getting back around to the reason for this post, are there any subcontinentals on this site? Obviously this is a serious insult in India, right? Can you confirm that or shed some light on it?
I do not believe it is in America. I just asked a number of my friends, and they all started laughing and said,”Throw money down? Everyone does that. It’s just money. You’re supposed to throw it down. Why would anyone get upset about that?”
I assume if it was some grotesque American faux pas, someone would have told me by now, but I am 57, and I’ve never heard a peep.
I might add that there’s a mean way to throw money down and nice way. I don’t toss bills down callously like a prick. I sort of flutter the bills down like butterflies in a gentle and sensitive way is a good way to put it. I try not to engage in mean or dicky behaviors in public because I want to get along with everyone.
Is there some sort of American etiquette rule along these lines? Do any of you follow it? How come I never heard of it, and no one ever called me on it? I have to conclude that there’s no etiquette rule about how to place money down in US culture.
