Plural of Anecdotes

I have a comic (a couple, actually).

They're young, and inexperienced, and I've been very careful about who I introduce them to.

And so it is a shock to go to my stats page and see, consistently, triple the hits it should be getting.

Mystery people are reading my comic. Which is ok, it's up as an experiment, I'm open to comments even from strangers, but...

Even more unnerving, they aren't saying anything.

It's like finding out I've got stalkers, fercryinoutloud.

Or, given my own lurkery tendencies, like a really hammery Aesop.

The comments section of every blog, comic and Wiki I read now has readers 6-12 to thank for an explosion of nattery. Good job, Mystery Eyes.

A valuable lesson in ethnocentrism, spoken in accents I can readily identify as Not Texan But American, Possibly Northwestern or Something, spoken in tones of hushed wonderment, in of all places a barbecue restaurant:

Woman: Did you see that nice young lady? She looked so mean, but she was so friendly!

Man: What did I tell you? Everyone's like that around here. You know, if you get a flat or something, and you pull over, people here will actually stop and see if they can help you?!?

Woman: No! Really? Like….like the police?

Man: Like anybody! Total strangers! Scared me the first time, I though I was being carjacked, but...(food arrives)

Woman: Oh my goodness, that's a lot of food.

Man: TEXAS size portions! I love the food here! And you get free refills on tea!

Woman: Oh my, it's good!

Man: That too! I haven't had any bad food here! And there's these little restaurants everywhere, you never have to eat at a McDonald's. Oh! When we get breakfast, I have to take you to one of these places, um, they're always painted really bright colors, and they never have people in them who speak English, but oh, wow, the food! They have these little rolled things, right? And they serve ‘em on this flat bread, it’s called..um.. Something French or something..

Me, over my shoulder: Tortillas?

Man: Yes! Thank you! (back to woman) TORtillas!* I swear, everyone in this state is bilingual!

Me: *chokes on the sheer volume of comments built up in my throat, dies and is dead*

***

Who this is a lesson for remains to be discovered.


* What is this? I have a friend from Wisconsin who pronounces it "Gone-zaliss". What’s with the weird syllabic stress, northerners?