I could do nothing more than stand there, dumbfounded

The highest result of education is tolerance.

~Helen Keller

In order to get away from my desk during the day, I regularly step out for lunch.  While sometimes with co-workers, this habit more often than not coalesces in the form of me driving to a fast(ish) food establishment, taking food out, and driving back to work to eat it at my desk.

(I will eventually be able to have my coffin nailed shut with the copious amounts of irony I insist on inundating my life with.)

I forego the burger joints to grab a pita or a sub or a wrap of some sort.  Still quick, but slower in the artery-hardening department.

Today, waiting to pay for my chicken wrap with curry sauce in a cheese tortilla, I handed the cashier a tattered ten dollar bill and my frequent-buyer card to have punched so that my 12th one will be free and I can justify buying lunch as often as I do.

She stood over the till, after placing the bill I handed her into the appropriate slot, and stared intently at the coins for what seemed a full minute.  It was probably closer to half a minute, but time has a way of dragging when trivial and commonplace occurrences do not transpire as rapidly as one expects.

She eventually, cautiously, extracted a small variety of coins from their receptacles and placed them, all four of them, into the palm of one hand.  Thereupon she elected to stare again at them for a further inordinate length of time, pushing them around randomly with the forefinger of her other hand.  Again, it seemed to stretch into the realm of minutes.

Thankfully, I had one hand on the counter to brace myself when she finally tentatively handed them to me and said the amazing words that I still cannot believe she said.

As she dropped two quarters, one dime and one penny into my upturned palm, she quirked a guilty half-smile and said, "Umm, just make sure that's sixty-one cents, 'kay?"

I could do no more than mumble, "Yeah, thanks," in return, and beat a hasty retreat before I curled up right there on the floor and died of anguish.

My soul weeps a little today for certain sad states of education.

Comments

[JuJuBee]

Wow. Just...wow.

[Paul]

heh heh...

he said irony nails...

[Mark]

Gotta play, me too on this one.

We go out July 11 to a pharmacy to pick up a prescription for Ben. It's a chewable tablet. The pharmacy tech asks us the child's birthdate, which my wife provides her. The tech then says, "We have July 11." My wife, feeling fairly confident in her memory of the day she pushed a bowling ball out of a milk jug, informs her that her records are wrong. My wife corrects her, says again that it was July 2, and then the woman behind the counter asks, "Of 2005?"

Yes, he was born 9 days ago, and we figured this chewable tablet would be the perfect thing for him.

[Alec]

As a teacher in said sad education, I think I've got you both beat, as I get to read the essays, mark the tests, and hold the discussions that seek to find out just what one...doesn't know.

My personal two favourites to date:
Assignment: One page essay single spaced.
Result: A one page essay single spaced that contained not one single capital letter or punctuation mark...not even a period at the very end. It makes a great test of ones lung power when you see how much of it you can read out loud before you pass out.

Next: Having spent time in class studying the geography of Canada and Europe (this was a Canadian school) I informed my students there would be a test. They knew when the test would be, they knew what cities of Canada and countries of Europe they would have to be able to identify on a blank map. We even practiced in class. Nevertheless, I had taught long enough that, upon marking said tests, I wasn't surprised when people labelled Russia or Turkey as Great Britain and so on. I was, however, unprepared for the person who labelled the European countries on the Canadian map and the Canadian cities on the European map. My bad, not having thought it necessary to label which map was which.

Sorry for the rant, but it's a topic close to my heart.

[fv]

Wow. Another Ben born on July 2. With each passing day, I think I'm gonna have to add one of those email numbers at the end of my son's name so he can be identified in class.

"Who knows the answer? Yes, Ben_126945? No, I said 6945, not 6845! GADAMMIT! I'm going to colour-code you all!"