![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So I'm in Target last night, picking up a few things. I decided to get some cash back for Colleen, since she's going to be away for a few days on school business. I get $10 in cash back, and I ask the cashier to have it all in singles.
I swear she looked at me like I had two heads and three arms. "Singles?" was her reply.
Now, she looked to have Hispanic blood in her, but no accent whatsoever, and her English was perfect. Apparently, mine wasn't.
"Yes," I said.
She opened the cash drawer and put a single $1 note in her hand, looked up at me and asked, "A single ten?" I shook my head. "Ten of these?" she asked, pointing to the bill in her hand.
"Yes," I said, getting a slightly exasperated tone in my voice.
Now, in my mind, I was asking myself, "When did I stop speaking English? Have I started speaking in Urdu somehow?"
What I should have replied with was something like, "No, I've changed my mind. I'd like it all in pennies. Loose."
or...
"Unless you have German Deutschmarks, then yes."
It's like she had to have it confirmed three times before it finally parsed in her head that I wanted ten singles.
I was waiting for her to ask why. Here's the answer I would have provided:
"Because I'm leaving on a long road trip early in the morning, and I didn't want to be standing in front of a soda machine at a rest stop looking like a dope asking passersby if they could break a tenner."
When I worked as a cashier at CVS, if someone asked for their change in singles, I didn't ask twice unless I didn't have enough or some other circumstance. This wasn't one of them. She had plenty of single bills in her drawer, she seemed intelligent enough to understand my request the first time... I just don't understand why she needed to confirm it the second and third times...
Wow...
I swear she looked at me like I had two heads and three arms. "Singles?" was her reply.
Now, she looked to have Hispanic blood in her, but no accent whatsoever, and her English was perfect. Apparently, mine wasn't.
"Yes," I said.
She opened the cash drawer and put a single $1 note in her hand, looked up at me and asked, "A single ten?" I shook my head. "Ten of these?" she asked, pointing to the bill in her hand.
"Yes," I said, getting a slightly exasperated tone in my voice.
Now, in my mind, I was asking myself, "When did I stop speaking English? Have I started speaking in Urdu somehow?"
What I should have replied with was something like, "No, I've changed my mind. I'd like it all in pennies. Loose."
or...
"Unless you have German Deutschmarks, then yes."
It's like she had to have it confirmed three times before it finally parsed in her head that I wanted ten singles.
I was waiting for her to ask why. Here's the answer I would have provided:
"Because I'm leaving on a long road trip early in the morning, and I didn't want to be standing in front of a soda machine at a rest stop looking like a dope asking passersby if they could break a tenner."
When I worked as a cashier at CVS, if someone asked for their change in singles, I didn't ask twice unless I didn't have enough or some other circumstance. This wasn't one of them. She had plenty of single bills in her drawer, she seemed intelligent enough to understand my request the first time... I just don't understand why she needed to confirm it the second and third times...
Wow...