Essay on A Normal Practice Of The United States

A normal practice in the United States is forming a line when waiting for food, checking-out at a store, or anything that requires waiting. It is pretty rare to see someone with the confidence to walk to the front of a line without an explanation or an apology. In fact, whenever anyone, including my friends or family, tries to cut the line in front of me or others, I get pretty heated about it. I was decently nervous about breaking this social norm because it is seen as very rude and it is not something that is accepted by people in our society. I decided to start this rule breaking process on a Monday morning at Peter B’s. There were about 3 people in line and my friend was working the counter. I hesitated before walking to the front of the line, but when I did, people in line were glaring at me. My friend commented on it saying “did you not see the line?” Clearly, she was not amused either, but then I had to decide if I wanted to explain my line-cutting. I asked a few of them about how they felt about me skipping the line and they customers said they were thrown off by this and were pretty mad about it. I explained I was breaking this cultural norm for my anthropology class and they stopped judging me. After that, however, I did not continue to explain my actions to people and the responses were exactly what I expected, for the most part. My next move was Mather at prime breakfast time. This is where I became nervous, since the dining hall is full of students- some I…