These are the people we're supposed to win over?

I went to the pharmacy today. Because I had an unusual prescription, I had to go to a compounding pharmacy, instead of the one I usually go to.

This Compounding Pharmacy is straight out of the 1950s, inside and out-- one of those places that would be charming in the North but in the South tends to be sorta creepy. The workers are all white, and sort of marcelled and old-fashioned. So I went in and handed over my prescription and sat down on a little wooden bench that Norman Rockwell would have liked to paint.

While I was waiting, two men came in, selected a pair of socks, and took them up to the counter to pay for them. The following conversation then took place.

Marcelled female clerk: Will there be anything else for you today?
Man [looking alarmed]: Como?
me: Si quiere algo mas.
man [looking confused]: O, no, esto es todo!
me: He says there won't be anything else.
Mfc [counting out his change]: Three, four, five, and ten.
man: Gracias.

The two gentlemen then left, and the Marcelled female clerk leaned across the counter and said to me in the sort of voice usually reserved for discussing adultery:

Mfc: Did they really not talk American?
me [smiling fiercely]: I told the gentleman that you asked if he wanted anything else, and he said no, he didn't.
Mfc: But they didn't talk American!
me: English.
Mfc: English. [scowl] I feel kind of...

At this point I smiled at her so fiercely that she retired without saying what she felt kind of. But I'm sure she'll say it at the church coffee hour this Sunday:

"Really, they didn't talk American at all! They should stay home, if they're not going to talk American!"

And everyone will cluck and agree with her.

These aren't people we can ever win over. They don't even know what language they're speaking! And right now they're being fed a line about how our borders need "protecting" from some dangerous, dark-skinned, non-American-speaking terrorists who are coming in to procreate us out of existence.

Sigh. I wanna go back up north. Like maybe to Newfoundland.