No fools working there

Sign in the Clerks office of Bankruptcy Court, San Jose:

"Chapter 7 Bankruptcy filing fee: $299. No personal checks accepted."

This week in Berkeley...

While I am studying in the reading room at the public library, a young woman eschews all the seats at all the empty tables in the room and falls heavily in the chair next to me with a big sigh like some kind of heat-seeking device. She doesn't open the calculus book she's brought, but opens a microwavable burrito and surreptitiously eats it with her head practically in her lap. I notice boxes of cereal in her backpack and that she smells like she hasn't bathed in weeks -- which explain her skin problems and greasy hair. She finishes her food then bangs her forehead down on the table inches from my arm. Two minutes later she stomps off into the stacks, leaving her smell behind her. It's almost time for a lunch break and I decide to weather the smell, because moving to another seat would be so obvious in this empty room, and I don't want to offend her (?!).

A well-dressed elderly man in a tweed jacket and slacks and neatly trimmed white hair and beard walks in front of me, leaning carefully on his elegant cane. He turns his head slightly and I see that he is wearing a bright red clown nose.

A man, approaching me from the other direction as I walk through a central Berkeley neighborhood, stops and inquires whether he could ask me a question.
"Sure."
"Are you Dutch?"
"No"
"Are you Amish?"
"No"
"Are you a pioneer?"
"No"
"Are your ancesters older than that?"
"Older than what?"
"Older than a Dutch, an Amish, or a pioneer?"
"Well, I suppose so."
"Thank you."
He turned and continued walking down the street, leaving me to wonder what his survey was all about and whether he asks everyone the same questions, or whether my appearance somehow sparked that line of questioning.