Work with me here

Last night some friends of mine and I started sharing our culture clash stories. I just have to share a few of them here:

One of our friends was in his doctor's office and wanted to make an appointment. He was informed that he could only make appointments on the phone. "But I'm right here now, so I can't I make an appointment?" Cannot. So he pulled out his cell phone and called them, and they had a conversation over the counter, on the phone, to make an appointment.

Another friend was in a restaurant and wanted tartar sauce to go with something - fries maybe? I can't remember. Anyway, they wouldn't give it to him. When pressed, they said it was because tartar sauce goes with fish, not fries. They finally brought the manager in and eventually my friend was able to get some, mostly because he made it obvious he wasn't walking away without tartar sauce.

The same friend was in the same restaurant another time and discovered he'd been charged for a larger drink than he wanted. When he pointed this out, he was informed, "Mandatory upsize." What? "Mandatory upsize."
"But I don't want the bigger one. I don't want to pay for the bigger one." It finally came out that they were out of the smaller cups, so they were upsizing everyone's drinks and making them pay for it.

We had other stories as well. They're all a blur, usually involving one of our friends getting comments like "company policy" without due explanation.

My brother comes in a few weeks (wahoo!) and he still wants to play the "Have it Your Way" game where, if you are able to conquer circumstances as some of my friends did in these stories, you garner a point. If at any time in the game you are caned for your actions, you lose your points. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.