1st Trip Back to US in Almost 7 years

TL:DR - First time back to the US in nearly 7 years and both prices of everything and attitudes of (most of) the people here freakin' suck.

I came to Thailand in early 2018 and have only traveled to surrounding countries since. I intended to come back a few years ago, but Covid made that unfeasible for a number of reasons, and now I'm back. Brought my wife for her first trip to the US and to meet my family. That part of it has been fantastic, but most everything else about the trip has not.

The price shock has been terrible. With the amount of money I budgeted for this trip, I could have flown everyone we'll visit here in the US to Thailand (10 people), rented pool villas for a month to house them all comfortably, and purchased all groceries, snacks and food necessary to keep everyone well-fed for a whole month. Meanwhile, here I paid $200 for four people to eat a meal at a restaurant. A burger joint here cost $92 for four people and... this has been particularly frustrating... the clerk didn't greet us, offer us menus or anything, I ordered from a tablet and paid by tapping my card before he even acknowledged we were there. I selected to not give any tip (as I got 0 service of any kind) and the jerk gave me attitude for it.

Most of the people here are at least overweight if not obese, and many of these morbidly obese. More often than not, people act annoyed when you enter their business and do little more than point to the tablets provided for ordering and paying. And everyone expects tips despite providing little to no service at all, and showing annoyance with your presence.

WTF?

This first part of our trip has been to southern California. We got excellent service from a little hole in the wall Mexican food place, excellent service at a convenience store (the lady was super kind and friendly to us), and the people at Chik-Fil-A went out of their way to make my wife feel welcome. That being said, 3 places out of 20 or so is a piss poor ratio and it saddens me.

This is what my adult children deal with on the daily. I'm mad that they've grown accustomed to it, but proud to see they retain their manners and politeness anyway.

We were excited to go to a street-food market here near San Diego, but two tacos cost $18 (610 THB) and two Gyro sandwiches with two sodas were $28 (950 THB). In fairness, they were delicious but I thought my wife was going to choke. Street food...

You can visit the San Diego zoo for just $74 per person (2,514 THB).

I'm thrilled about seeing my (adult) kids, my sister and parents, but I'm already anxious to return to the land of smiles.