Rule number 1: Follow all the rules

I did a foolish thing the other evening. I went into one of our local bars and seated myself without permission.

You just don’t do this in America, but I had an important recurring thought that I wanted to scribble down before it left my head (namely, ‘There is always a little more toothpaste in the tube. Think about it’), and anyway the place was practically empty, I just took a table near the door. After a couple of minutes the hostess-The Customer Seating Manager-came up to me and said in a level tone, ‘I see you’ve seated yourself.’

‘Yup,’ I replied proudly. ‘Dressed myself too.’

‘Didn’t you see the sign?’ She tilted her head at a big sign that said ‘Please Wait to Be Seated.’

I have been in this bar about 150 times. I have seen the sign from every angle except supine.

‘Is there a sign?’ I said innocently. ‘Gosh, I didn’t notice it’

She sighed. ‘Well, the server in this section is very busy, so you may have to wait for some time for her to get to you.’

There was no other customer within 50 feet, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I had disregarded a posted notice and would have to serve a small sentence in purgatory in consequence.

It would be entirely wrong to say that Americans love rules, but they have a certain regard for them. They behave towards rules in much the same as the British behave towards queues- as something that is fundamental to the maintenance of a civilized and orderly society. I had, in effect, queue-jumped the ‘Wait to Be Seated’ sign.

I expect it may be something to do with our Germanic stock. On the whole I have no quibble with that. There are times, I have to say, when a little Teutonic order wouldn’t go a amiss in England-like when people take two spaces in the car park( the one offence for which, if I may speak freely here, I would welcome back capital punishment).

Sometimes, however, the American devotion to order goes too far. Our local public swimming pool, for example, has twenty-seven posted rules-twenty-seven! – Of which my favourite is ‘Only One Bounce Per Dive on Diving Board’. And they’re enforced.

(extract from the Bill Bryson book ‘notes

from a Big Country’)

Vocabulary:

Gosh – an exclamation used in place of God to indicate surprise or amazement.

Scribble- to draw or write something quickly or in a messy way.