Thursday I wanted to hang up an antique saw in our den. I needed a skinny long nail as dark as possible so it would not be draw your eyes to the nail, but do its job unnoticed. I went to the locally owned and operated hardware store which I try to whenever I can to give them some business. They are just down the road a few blocks from Home Depot.
I went to the nail section and looked. I only needed one nail. But, not wanting to make them go to all that trouble of ringing up just one nail I picked out 4 or 5 nails some shorter and some longer.
I went up to the cashier counter. There was only a short little cheerleader looking girl behind the counter. She looked about 15 or 16. She was wearing short shorts and had a very cheerleader type of smile. Her eyes looked blank and simple.
I told her these nails were 99¢ a pound so she would have to weigh them. She said she didn’t have a scale. They do have a scale.. So, I said, “Well, you can probably estimate” I handed her the nails and said “How much do you think these weight?”
The held them and closed her eyes, then opened her eyes and looked at them and said, “a half pound?”
I told her they would not even way a tenth of a pound – but I said, “Lets just say they weight a quarter of a pound – that would mean they would be worth about 25¢, which, with tax, say 28¢…. Is that ok?”
She smiled and nodded her head in approval, she rung it up on the cash register and said, “31¢ please.”
I suppose she was looking for the final number and when she rung up the 28¢ the system automatically added the sales tax… but who knows.
6 comments:
She didn't have a clue, Eddie. You could have told her a dime, and she would have been happy.
Judy,
You are right, she would have happily accepted a dime. Or, I think I could have even gave her a coupon for Skippy Peanut Butter and she would have accepted it.
I think I had a bunch of those in my physics class.
But then, when I was in high school, my mind was on other things. Like cheerleaders in short shorts (but they did not wear those back then).
Si,
Speaking of physics and cheerleaders, in our physics class was a cheerleader that was a simpleton Linda was her name.. I saw a dead fly on the floor and pointed to it and told her it was a molecule that bounced off the teachers table. She believed it.
However, gullible she was, she was good writing on a note pad that "Eddie Hunter has my permission to play pool at the the Past Time Grill" and sign it as "Mrs. Ed Hunter" in the most perfect simple signature there could be. If somebody wanted to be mean, they could pull all the permission sheets and compare handwriting, and I bet they would all match Linda's handwriting.
Ah, and that is the future right there.
Suzanne,
Well, good luck!
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