A missile hit the Pentagon on 9/11.
- blink *
So all those electrical safety precautions and insulated tools we had in electronics school were unnecessary?
Numbers tend to get fuzzy after beer #4. Not to mention it’s much quicker to peek in my wallet and tell at a glance how much money is in there based on the colours I see.
Then again, I also believe that the system used for Euro paper bills is utter brilliance, because they’re not only colour-coded, but made in different sizes as well. Genius.
“What is a Dalai Lama?”
Euros may be easy to distinguish, but they are kind of overwhelming all jumbled up with their different sizes and colors in my wallet. It looks like a Mexican wedding in there.
This tends to occur more in smaller nations were there American tourists outnumber the locals and/or whose local currency is not as desirable (for example, resort towns in Mexico and the Caribbean, or cruise ships based out of American port cities). There aren’t too many places in Canada that would fit that description.
I stand by my conclusion. You’ve got to be pretty damned ignorant to ask a question like that when standing in the middle of the financial capital of Atlantic Canada.
Heh. You think you had it bad? I worked briefly in a hardware store when I was younger. The store was located in my hometown - an island in Alaska. Which is a part of the United States. Really.
I had people ask me that same goddamn question.
I also had people ask me, apparently in all seriousness, if we accepted US currency. When offered the response “Yes, sir/ma’am, Alaska is part of the United States”, I had people argue with me about it.
Of course, I also had the following exchange happen:
I was dutifully checking out tourist 1, who was purchasing a flashlight (why the hell someone would go on vacation, get off the cruise ship and buy a standard black MagLite I have no earthly idea, but she was buying it and I was taking her cash). She asked me if I were an Eskimo.
(Note of clarification: I am not an Eskimo. I am of Irish and German extraction and it shows - I’m fish belly white, red-headed and blue-eyed. There is no reason at all to suspect I have any Native heritage at all, which I, in fact, do not.)
The patron in line behind her, tourist 2 (who was buying screwdrivers - why, God why?) immediately corrected her and informed her that the appropriate phrase is “Inuit” and proceeded to get righteously offended on my behalf.
My polite interjection “Actually, I’m of German and Irish extraction and in any case neither Eskimo nor Inuit would be an appropriate designation for a Native Alaskan from this area” was summarily ignored by both ladies - who were busily debating the PC-ness of Eskimo vs. Inuit and who were both getting righteously outraged with each other on my behalf. In fact, the ladies ignored everything except their argument (which was getting quite heated) - including suggestions that they move to one side and let the people behind them complete their transactions. Fortunately, the people behind them were locals, and therefore in no particular hurry and well used to the vagaries of tourists. Plus, they were enjoying the free show.
One of the other store employees wandered by and wanted an explanation - which I gave. She spent the next 15 minutes laughing hysterically and still gives me shit about it to this day. This would be because, at that particular moment, I was the only employee on shift who wasn’t at least partially Native. Hell, other than the two ladies arguing, I was the only person in the whole building who wasn’t Native. Even both of the other customers at that point were Native.
Once a girl I was working with saw me reviewing Chinese character flash cards and asked in wonderment, “why are you studying Chinese?!”
Smart aleck that I was, I replied naturally, “oh, it’s because my parents are Chinese”.
Even more wide-eyed wonderment: “Really?!?”
(I am Scotch-Irish as far as I know. Don’t look Asian at all.)
It’s equivalent to about seven alpacas per week.
A muslim, according to Larry King.
A llama a day keeps the alpaca away.
Give us this day our daily llama.
A few days ago, I was in the grocery store check-out line behind three young tourists who were near-ecstatic about how cheap the food they were going to buy was…well, sure, if the prices had been in USD, which they attempted to pay with. They then had some trouble agreeing with the cashier when she explained that “1.45” is not the price in every currency. (Man, if only. I would pay for everything in Estonian kroons and live like a queen.)
The reason Mexicans have such nice trucks is they don’t have to pay taxes the first five years they are in America.
Second hand story from my husband…
Years ago, working at his dad’s restaurant, my husband and friends (all rather intelligent guys) were having some discussion about science-y things, and his friend said "Gosh, could you even imagine a world without plastics?
Bubble-head blonde, deep in the pro-Green movement of the nineties, replied “Wouldn’t that be wonderful!”
(Note - this didn’t stop the guys from trying to get her into bed)
At a fabric store I brought a bolt of black broadcloth to the cutting counter and asked for 6 and 1/3 yards. The salesgirl found it necessary to ask her supervisor how to measure out 1/3 of a yard.
A friend of mine was at a grocery store with his father, and experiencing a bit of a delay at the cash register. It seems that the clerk was ignoring them completely, jabbering away with a buddy in rapidfire Spanish. Hans, who couldn’t follow a word of the conversation, turned to his father and made a comment in German to the effect that he was getting rather tired of waiting. The clerk spun around, glared at Hans, and informed him in an icy voice that it was offensive and insulting to speak publicly in a language that other people might not understand.
Sheesh! As any idiot knows, it’s 27 inches!
This just happened.
I had my son at the pediatricians office this afternnon to get a Lyme disease titer done (long story). On our way out we walked passed another doc in the practice we know fairly well and stopped a sec to say hi. He turned to my son and said:
“Hi, doing any swimming?”
Now, my son is not famous for his swimming, his hair was not wet, he was not in complaining of a swimming related condition, he swims in the summer sure, but it is January and it’s CT and all of 15F today. I looked at the doctor, burst out laughing and asked him “why?”. The reply? “Making conversation”.
I couldn’t stop laughing, the question just seemed so out of left field- “how’s school?” OK. “Been swimming?”. Too funny.
I did apologize for laughing, but I don’t think he got it.
Questions up here are monumentally stupid, but it’s probably the case most everywhere. I talked to a bus driver in McKinley who said he’s been asked everything imaginable including “why don’t they keep the animals closer to the road?” My two favorites are “What elevation is the city?” (asked in Juneau, the reply to which was “low tide or high tide?”), and “Where does the inter-island bridge start?” (in reference to the Aleutians).
OK, maybe I’m stupid too, but why is this a dumb question?
Exactly. It’s obviously not at sea level. I’ve seen maps. It’s waaaaay up there. 