A number of summers ago, I was working on an archeological dig along Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria, England. Some days a interesting cross section of tours would come through, dragging with them a colossal cloud of ignorance and traveler's checks.
The head archeologist, we'll call him Brian, hated these days with a burning passion born from the double frustration of annoying questions and lost productivity because he wasn't working. Luckily, I was not important enough to talk to a group, but if we were asked a question by someone outside the fences we were supposed to respond as best we could without biting their heads off.
One of the older folks broke off from the main group and hobbled over to near where I was working.
"Hello"
"What's up" (I'm from California)
"You ever heard of a place called Jamestown?"
"Yeah, I think so." (still trying to work)
"I'm from Jamestown, Virginia, you know where that is?"
"Yeah, east coast, right?" (trying to get him mad so he'll leave)
"That's right" (Damn, it didn't work, but at least he's not talking now)
He watched me for a few more minutes, and then ask me how deep I was going to go. I was troweling in a trench a meter deep (For those who don't know, a trowel is like a very small handshovel, you're digging a 25 cubic cm about every 3 hours. Slow. Work. But that's how you find coins and such). I replied that we would go about another meter and a half before the end of the season.
Mother of God, I thought. Here is comes.
"Well, I could get my JCB backhoe and dig that out real quick"
Silence. Yes. Yes, I bet you could. I didn't say anything to that, and after a couple minutes he left. Brian had overheard our conversation, and he came over shaking his head.
"He's a redneck, I'm a hippie" I said. "We are both Americans, but, yeah. We're not related."
Brian just laughed.