Being a bumpkin in the big city

While the people of my new home in the Greater Tampa Bay Metropolitan Area are very friendly, that statement sometimes has to be qualified with the addendum "for city people." Because, as nice as individuals may be, something happens when you cram enough of them into a small area and make them sit in traffic for hours on end. Some of the nice ends up wearing off, and you have a situation like the one I had at the area's self-proclaimed top-rated Chinese buffet.

The Other Half was having severe withdrawal symptoms from Cape Girardeau's multiple Chinese buffets.

There's just something about mass amounts of sesame chicken and "krab" rangoon that gets him all tingly.

And, after three weeks without them, he found himself willing to fight whatever crowd necessary to get them.

So there we were, 10 percent off coupon in hand, staring down row after row of Chinese delicacies and row after row of people trying to get at them. Mr. Half was in hog heaven.

Me? Hard to believe, I know, but I'm generally not a buffet kind of girl. But anything for my man.

I waded in, grabbing my nondescript white plate. But while the rest of the buffet seemed to move along nicely, I got stuck behind a 100-year-old man on a Rascal scooter who decided to enjoy his meal at the buffet. He was creeping from tray to tray, eating a little from this one and that one as he went along, an egg roll here, a chicken nugget there.

I managed to get around him, vowing to avoid that strip of food altogether. But just around the corner, I ran into a very short woman wearing a horrible wig.

It clearly was synthetic and way too big for her head.

She stared at me with her mouth hanging open and finally blurted out, "You're the biggest woman I've ever seen!"

"Well this must be your lucky day!" I replied. (My second option was, "That's the worst wig I've ever seen.")

Do you see how the nice can wear off a person? Even one raised in genteel Southeast Missouri? But I am determined to get past that incident and continue to be kind to strangers, even if that means never stepping foot in another buffet. Who knows how much weight I could lose as a fringe benefit.

After all, some strangers around here have been kind to me, especially as I try to navigate my way through a new town. I end up crossing three lanes of traffic to take an exit I almost missed or getting into the right lane when I need to be in the left and then swerving back over. Even after all of it, I haven't been honked at or given the finger once.

I think it's because of my Missouri license plates.

People probably start to give me the finger, see the plates and think, "Oh. She's some Missouri bumpkin down here on vacation. I'll cut her some slack." But Mr. Half is determined to change the plates as soon as possible so we'll blend in. Luckily, he hasn't been able to figure out in a week's time where that switch can take place, what information or documents we'll need to take with us or anything else about the process. The only thing he has figured out is that he wants a "Save the Manatee" license plate for an extra $25.

Three weeks in Florida and he's an environmentalist.

Meanwhile, I'm willing to be mistaken for a kindly bumpkin for as long as it takes me to figure out how to drive around this town.

I might even get a Jeff Gordon bumper sticker to strengthen the image.

Heidi Hall is the former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.