One of my favorite customer blond moments

[ktopmil]

This was the highlight of my shift Saturday. I thought it was funny...


A man and woman are checking out into my line. It was pretty obvious that they were a couple. As I'm ringing them out, the woman calls over another guy from the line at the register behind me, someone she apparently knew.

Woman: Hi! What are you doing?
Man: I'm on break from the Navy actually.
W: Really, your in the Navy?
M: Yeah...for a year now. ( He sounded insulted, apparently she should have known, and he wasn't wearing a uniform).
W: What do you do in the Navy?
M: Intelligence, actually.
W: Like, computers and stuff? (Me: )
M: No...sensitive information....

There was a pause where I could have sworn the woman ask " Like what?" Because the next thing I heard

M: I... can't tell you...


And you think they would start becoming a little brighter...It's a bottomless pit.

[blas]

It's not necessarily a blond thing......just a stupid person thing.

[Arm]

I always loved those conversations.

I was signals, so there are some things I can talk about and some I can't, which I generally handle by sidestepping topics I can't talk about, or distracting the person I'm talking to. People are less likely to ask about something if you don't tell them about it... but some people just keep asking the wrong questions.

I had a conversation recently along those lines, actually.

CW: (Co-worker. Not sucky, just curious)
Me: (getting paid way below average for my job, and still making out like a bandit compared to my Army wage )

CW: So when you were in Korea, what did you do?
Me: I worked in a NOC- network operations center. Basically, I kept track of messages and kept message servers working.
CW: What kind of messages?
Me: Well, any kind, really. Email, messages from planes or listening posts, or anything that was handled on the computer networks.
CW: But your resume said you had a security clearance?
[-it's lapsed; my current job has no need for it-]
Me: Ah, well, some of the messages were sensitive... but I can talk about anything that's been made public.
[-that's more or less true, it works for a quick explanation-]
CW: So you could read any of those messages? And change them?
Me: I suppose, but... I wouldn't have.
CW: Why, could you have started World War III? A nuclear war?
Me: Yeah.
CW: ...
Me: Well... maybe not nuclear. I guess that depends.
CW: You know what? I don't want to know after all.

Fortunately, I never was MI. Worked with them, but, not them. Nothing quite like a job where you get out and your prospects are limited to the alphabet agencies or nothing, since about all you can tell people about your prior job was that you had one.

[PepperElf]

M: I... can't tell you...

he should have said: "I could tell you but.... then I'd have to kill you."

either that or just go with something besides "sensitive information" cos... hey people are curious.

[Andara Bledin]

This reminds me of some old friends and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

There were several people on that show that gave their occupation as "mathematician." Let's just say that they weren't academics.

^-.-^