Happy happy joy joy in Bellevue

Everyone is very cheerful in the shops in Bellevue. Being English, a sunny disposition is something I view with a great deal of suspicion. It juust doesn't seem reasonable for a person to enter a semi-orgasmic state of bliss just because I've purchased a bottle of pre-shave oil from them.

Or a jar of yeast.

Or a tube of toothpaste.

Or made no more than an enquiry about the roaming ability of a particular Nokia smartphone.

Well, writing those things down will ruin any hope of surprising my wife on her birthday this year, but too bad: I've been seriously freaked out by this over-overt display of friendliness from the shopkeepers of the Greater Seattle Area.

Perhaps I should have gone in toting my big cardboard box of stuff, and I'd have encountered the same derision I met with last night. It's the inconsistency I can't bear.

When you've grown accustomed to Asia, the shopping malls of Bellevue are a strange thing to ezperience. There's too much space and not enough people, and a total lack of foot massage joints, bubble tea and random barbecued meat vendors. Now that's not always a bad thing, but I'm used to being crowded as I try to reach a grumpy and uninterested man (it's always a man) selling overpriced electronic tat, not a cavalcade of cheery people of various genders in an otherwise empty room, who are all terribly happy to flog me stuff I still don't need.

This is why I mostly use Amazon. I can't stand the unjustified happiness of others, apparently.