" ...the seemingly widespread conviction of many ordinary Italians that polite behavior such as standing in line is either a Nazi characteristic or a British folly, one that in any event has no real application to this country. Indeed, although things are now gradually changing, left to themselves many Italians appear constitutionally unable to stand in line. “Where do you think you are, in Bulgaria?” a well-dressed man once snarled at me when I protested that he had pushed ahead of me on the cashier’s line at a downtown café. "

― Sari Gilbert , My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and Loving) in the Eternal City