« Oh Dr. Phil | Main | All in a day's work »

November 29, 2007

My faith in humanity

Today between work and my 6 pm class, I ventured over to at Water Tower. They have a little stand outside the main area, where they sell baked goods and fun stuff like that. They have really nice cookies, and, well, I wanted a cookie.

As I was standing in line, two things happened. First, the woman in front of me ordered so fru-fru drink which was made with skim milk. The clerk told her they didn't have any skim milk, and would 2% be okay? She snarled, "You just ruined my day!"

In the immediate aftermath of this, my internal monologue went something like this: What a bitch. It's 2% milk, it's not that guy's fault and he certainly didn't ruin your day. You're not going to die if you have 2% instead of skim. Did you know whole milk is actually 5% or something like that? I didn't know that, I thought whole milk was 100%. What's it 2% of, anyway? Wait, you, skim milk lady. Cool it. I'm sorry you couldn't get your milk, but the coffee line isn't the place to air your grievances. That's what blogs are for. This whole interior monologue occured in the space of a second or so; however, the woman eventually skipped a few beats, and then said, "I'm just kidding, 2% milk is fine." Needless to say, I was relieved.

The person behind me in line was much more pleasant. She was from Germany. The reason I know this was because she barely spoke a lick of English, and didn't know what coin was what. She showed me a nickel, and asked me if it was ten cents. I said, no, that's five cents. I was about to explain to her that for some reason the five cents are bigger than the ten cents, and I don't know why. Isn't it also weird that American coins don't have any numbers on them? They actually spell out "five cents" and "one cent," and quarters say "quarter dollar" and dimes say "one dime." They REALLY want people to learn English in this country, I guess.

I always get a warm fuzzy when I see somebody help another person out like that, whether it's giving directions, picking up a dropped glove, or teaching a traveler about the nuances of American coins. I feel like it's a staple of World War II movies where the American soldiers are in some faraway land, wanting to buy a souvenir with local currency. Instead of trying to figure it out, the GI holds out a handful of money, and the local takes the right amount and gives the right change. I probably couldn't blame them in the UK, where they had shillings, pence, farthings and other stuff. I wonder, though, how many times the Americans got fleeced when they held out their palms like that. Some people are dishonest, you see.

When I was in London way back in the day, I was proud to say I knew all my coinage. Of course, all they had was pounds and pence. If I had to deal with a sixpence, well, my head would've exploded.

entry no. 1019
Posted by oz115 at November 29, 2007 11:31 PM

---

Comments

---

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: