The checkout lady asked if we had been laughing at the Mennonites, and perhaps the Mennonites also had thought we were laughing at them. I suspect that, as a visibly different minority, they must often find themselves being watched curiously and perhaps commented about within their hearing in a language they may not understand perfectly or in whispers they do not hear clearly. So they may have been talking about the way Tom and I were behaving, thinking like the checkout lady that we were making fun of them.
As a member of a minority myself, I know how often I wonder if people who are looking at me are staring at me and thinking ill of me. Can you say paranoid and self-important and ...?
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