It's early in the morning, and my boss and I are alone; this is typically when we are likely to have a conversation about anything, often about culture and customers.

C opens by telling me that he had a Pakistani customer the other day.

"I hate Pakistanis," he says, "More than any other people in the world."

"So do I," I answer, because I've had experience with two Pakistani male doctors with atrocious, woman-disdaining bedside manners. (A Pakistani woman doctor I had was fine, and I have a 7-11 friend, also a woman, who's great.)

He tells me that the other day this Paki man showed up for notary services, bringing his wife and daughter with him. He got six or seven notary stamps which should have cost $4.00 a piece. The man stands there laughing as he hands C a ten-dollar bill, refusing to pay what he owed. What's C to do, turn him upside down and shake so his pockets dump out?

"He was nasty," C says, "laughing and stood there with his wife and daughter! I tell him 'Do not show your face here again.'

"He say 'I'll be back, laughing again.'

"I tell him, 'Never show your face here again.'

"I hate Pakistani more than any other people in the world."

He digs up more dirt, "Do you know that they marry their family? The father's brother's children, even their sister. How can you do that? They play together! If they do that, they think it's good thing. And they can have four wives."

"Disgusting," I say to the marrying family part. As for four wives, I say empathetically, "How do you take care of four when one is enough trouble?"

After we allow a little moment of silent respect for these reflections, I egg him on, based on other things we've touched on briefly, "How 'bout Arabs, so-so?" I nod my head from side to side, clarifying.

"Yes," he agrees. "They want things their way, only their way. If you have to do things a certain way, they don't care, just want things for themselves. Some are good, some not."

He goes on, "People from Iran, they nice people. Their government is bad but they are not."

I show agreement, even though my experience has mostly been like that on more superficial matters, but not on more personal subjects where they've been brainwashed by their government. I never tell these people about my Jewish half now.

"And Indians too. I like them, they are good people," he says, "Hindus are good." (He is Hindu, not Muslim.)

"Because of the values from the religion?" I ask.

"Yes," he says, "Every morning I pray. I pray for everybody. My family, my employees, my business, the President, the world, everybody. If I don't pray one morning, I feel bad."

"We do puja to keep the bad away and tikka," he gestures to the middle of his forehead. (Puja can be practiced in a number of ways. I'll let you look it up.)

Still smarting from my last negative encounter, I ask, "How about Nigerians?"

"They are ok," he says.

"How 'bout the last one I had? Or the one that argued with your brother while you were away—two hours each day for two days, or bargaining with you to pay $5 less of their bill?" (His brother mostly ignored his diatribe, occasionally telling him to go home, and at the end of the second day ordeal, the Nigerian verbally attacked his manhood to try to get some kind of reaction from him, which was also ignored. The Nigerian was of course, arguing against his bill. He had purchased his own auto parts to save money and one of them didn't serve the purpose, for which he was pissed at us. It's amazing to me how they think that their problems [often lied about] should become your problem to fix, just like the entitled blacks here act. The brother eventually took the unnecessary part back to Salvo Auto Parts, got the idiot's money refunded, and put it in his hand, something the idiot could have done himself, if his tendency to verbally bully weren't his first response, rather than thinking for a moment.)

"That is maybe 5%, no, 2%," he answers. I disagree to myself on the 2% and think the 5% may also be a little low, but I'm not a good estimator of percentages in general, and also because my strong, negative emotions can totally cloud my perspective, making me leery of the whole bunch. Now they'll have to show me first that they are one of civil ones before I let down any of my guard.

"Because of my experience as an American, I don't like black Americans," I tell him. (This is not completely true, because I am open to a good person, whoever they are. But their 30% crime rate becomes 80% for me because of Baltimore's sucky black culture which I can't get away from fast enough when I see it. It has colored my experience (unintended pun) so badly, that when I had to make some business calls to PA relating to my mother's death, I was totally struck by the pleasant difference in the manner black customer service employees handled the calls compared to some of the shlock I've gotten here, as well as no follow-up, unhelpfulness, rudeness, etc. Their outboxes often seem to be the trash can.)

He nodded his head in a here-and-there sort of way. Just recently, he told me about an in-person and phone experience with ones who got rude with him, using the f-word, which makes him lay down the law instantly. He said that his wife, who is now there a lot less (whew!), asks him why he is rude to the customers and gets upset with him (overheard from his side of phone conversation only).

"She doesn't know what the other person is saying. I am rude because they are rude. I tell her, this is my business. If am rude sometimes, it's o.k., I still have a lot of customers; I know how to run my business. She doesn't. It's not good to work with family, because I can't be myself with the customers." (Reference to that cultural tendency to micromanagement.)

"Well, you're not running a women's jewelry sales business like she did," I tell him. "If you were as nice as she is with the customers, people would either run all over you or think you are gay," I quip. "You're a man, and this is a man's business. She's been in this country since she was young, watched t.v., and probably gotten brainwashed by feminism which wants women and men to be and act the same when we're not."

He nods in agreement.

I tell him I like how honest I can be with him. And he seems to like having these sort of conversations with me, because he initiates them quite a bit when we're alone. Maybe he likes my perspective, understanding and wisdom as an older woman. (This is very un-American, but I'm sure it's also due to his unique personality, which is very open. He's about 20 years younger than I am.)

Then a customer comes in, and we're onto a usual day.