Me: Oh, I don't need utensils.
Macchu Pichu. Or however you spell it.
Clerk: It's OK. I already put them in.
Me: You can take them out. [Otherwise, I am just going to throw them away, which is wasteful for the environment that I am sure you care about very much and for your employer, who probably runs on those very profitable margins that restaurants and other businesses that deal in perishables often do.]
Clerk: That's OK.
Clerk: That comes to $6.61.
Me: Here's 20. [I don't really say the "Here's 20" part. I just hand him a 20. I am advancing the plot here without a visual.]
Boys in Peru.
Clerk: Your change is 13.39.
Me: Here's a penny. [He hadn't counted out the change yet.]
Clerk: That's OK. I already rung it up.
Me: Yeah, but you can do the math in your head. If I give you the penny, then you give me forty cents.
The Bolivian navy on Lake Titicaca. No joke.
Clerk: [as if he is doing me a favor to give me a quarter, a dime and four pennies instead of a quarter, a dime and a nickel.] No, it's OK.
Me: [Are you completely unwilling to listen to a word your customers say? And this chili better be darn good for that price.]
Northern Chile.
7 comments:
Heck, A., I'll hire him! Anyone who can charm a customer into accepting a quarter, a dime and four pennies instead of a ten and three ones plus a quarter, dime and four pennies is really gonna help the ol' profit margin!
Mr S, it's not that he charmed me, it's that he then proceeded to ignore me in favor of the dreadlocked, smelly homeless guy who came in, sat down, and asked for a glass of water. And got it. In a paper cup. Thus consuming more of the owner's resources without returning profit to the business.
I suppose what I should have done was said, "Give me the forty cents, dammit! I don't want the extra pennies!" He wasn't listening to me!
He didn't charm me! He ticked me off!! I am mad about this. NOT CHARMED!
The willingness to fight the battles that will never be won is admirable. I think.
The math angle is a losing effort almost every time.
I am more aghast at the *chili* than anything else, lol. Hubby is from Cincinnati... he moved to Texas in his late 20s to get another of his degrees. At some point over the past 20+ years he's tried to convince this natural born Texan that that Cincinnati ick is... *gulp* (insert really squeaky voice here) "chili". One time he went back to visit his mom he smuggled 4 cans of the mess back here in his suitcase. I made him take them to work and told him he could eat it for lunch some time because if he used any of MY pots to heat it up I was throwing them out, lol.
Flutter, it was a shock to move to Texas when I was a kid and discover that chili there did not include macaroni, which is how my Wisconsin-raised mother makes it. Hers is yummy, BTW.
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