How polite are you?

When checking out of a store - any store - it's damn near impossible to be the last one to say "thank you." I think it goes with the badge and uniform - the idea that no matter what, if you're an employee, you must say thank you after the customer. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to have the customer say thank you to end the conversation.

I've tried to test the ridiculousness of this. Tonight, I went to the local supermarket. A typical exchange at the cash register ensued:
Clerk: "Welcome! Go ahead! Ah, good evening. Thank you." (I get the "I recognize you 'ah, good evening'" an awful lot because there aren't too many people who look like me around here. Far more people here know me than who I know.)
Me: "Thank you." (I chuckle to myself as I wonder what, exactly, I'm thanking her for...)
Clerk goes through all items in the basket, tells me the total.
I hand her the money.
Clerk: "1400 yen. Thank you."
Me: "Thank you."
Clerk: "8 yen is your change. And your receipt. Thank you." Hands me the change.
Me: "Thank you."
Clerk: "Thank you."
Now the "thank you"s turn to the past tense, since the transaction is now complete.
Me: "Thank you."
Clerk: "Thank you."
I wanted to see if I could get the last thank you in. Saying it directly, especially at this point, would not lead to success, I knew, so I bagged the groceries. On my way out of the store, I noticed that the clerk was now tending to another customer, so I said, "Thank you" one more time. Not only did she stop what she was doing - midsentence - to thank me one more time, but two other employees - one stacking the vegetable aisle and one at a different register - chimed in with their own thank yous.
There are certainly times I feel like Steve Martin in "My Blue Heaven" - completely overwhelmed by how (outwardly) nice people are.

I'm trying to demonstrate to some Japanese friends how over-the-top I find their comments. I have friends who have been to my apartment many times. Yet every time, they ask me if they can go to the bathroom. They actually apologize for going. "I'm sorry, can I use your bathroom?" I've started saying no.

Also, I've taken to apologizing for anything and everything. I walk into the office and instead of saying good morning, I apologize 4 or 5 times. "Gomenisai! Sumimasen! Gomen! Gomenisai! Sumimasen!"
Today, I accidentally bumped into my boss, Maki, at the office, and before I said anything, she apologized. She was just standing there, having a conversation with someone else. I wasn't watching all that closely, and the card I was holding grazed her arm. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. You gotta love a society of people who apologize to you after you run into them.
Then tonight, while co-teaching a private lesson with Maki, I went to the whiteboard to write something. Maki took my pencil off the table and copied down what I wrote on the board. As I sat back down, she put the pencil back. I wasn't sure whether to yell at her for using my pencil without asking, so instead, I just said, "I'm sorry." Fortunately, Maki is super-cool and got the joke.

The reason I put (outwardly) in parentheses above will be the substance of a future post - the way style and substance are treated in this part of the world.

Until then, I'm sorry!