What the hell?

I was at Woolies (1) today getting my weekend paper. I just get The Sydney Morning Herald weekend paper as my hard-copy paper. That's it. The rest I read online, though I do also by the occasional hard copy mag like The Monthly (2).

So I was getting the paper and I went through a narrow express lane. It reminded me of a sheep run to be honest. The person on the check out was a twenty-something Asian girl, pretty, with a small zit blossoming from within her philtrum. She had her glossy black hair in a short pony-tail and a pair of glasses perched on her snub nose. 

On the front cover of the paper was an article about the currency note printing scandal the Reserve Bank is caught up in with senior officials alleged to have sat on evidence that some of their people were allegedly acting in a somewhat snaky manner.  

As she scanned the paper she saw the article. 'What the hell?' she said. She grabbed the folded over paper and starting reading the piece. 'What's all this about?' she asked in wonder. 'Um,' I said, 'I think it's that we licensed our currency technology—you know, plastic notes—to other countries but we allegedly bribed their officials to give us the contracts. Like in Vietnam or Malaysia or something.' That explanation was confusing so I tried a couple more times to get the gist across. She asked a few more questions as she read as I paid via credit card, but she quickly exhausted my limited knowledge of the subject and then I was left standing there for a while as she kept reading, eventually handing the paper back when the person behind me in the queue for the sheep run started getting toey. 

In truth I was half-tempted to give her the paper on the strength of her interest and wonderment then go get another one down at the Newsagent's. But I decided that would weird her out and walked off, leaving her to greet my fellow sheep that had been queuing impatiently behind me.

What a totally unexpected but awesome response from a service person whilst making a rudimentary purchase! (3)

Oh, a shout-out to Casso. I was at the office complex out in the bush. The large one where roos bound through the car park. Guess who's manning the greasy spoon? Grumpy and the Pirate. 

The poor fuckers. She looked especially grumpy. And he was glorious with a freshly-shaved head and splendid in his guise as a Mingol seaman. Glorious, but saddened, the weight of his fate heavy upon his broad piratical shoulders. 

(sad) Yarr.

(1) i.e.Woolworths, the second largest or largest grocery retailer in the country. You know, just in case you're not a local Ozzer and you didn't know what the fuck a Woolies was.
(2) When we were at the coast on our mini-break I got a trashy mag for holiday reading. The trash mag I chose? Nexus. And it was totally cool. I loved the thin paper. I loved the font. I loved the densely packed layout. I loved the ads. The subject matter. The letters to the editor. And the glorious trust they have in accepting and putting out what which crosses their desk. Guys, I salute you! Interestingly the issue I got had some dude promoting the idea that reflux was caused by not enough acid in the tumtum; the idea being that reflux is half-digested food shooting back up the throat and if you had the right amount of acid to begin with there'd be no food to escape, would there? One of the solutions was a daily glass of apple cider vinegar and a dollop of honey. The exact same treatment my Dad has followed for twenty years and a treatment my mother boasted cured my dad's asthma. Or something like that. Anyway, it was an awesome read. Especially the interview with the dude talking about the giant battle that happened in Antarctica between the allies and South Pole Nazis in around 1947...
(3) Had a weird purchase experience? Share it with ole Mikey.