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Couple weeks ago there was this short semi-old lady who almost resembled an Eskimo who wanted to know if she could get some keys made; a ring of four KW1 housekeys, and maybe a car chip key.
Thing is, her grasp of the English language was beyond minimal; it was virtually nonexistent. I think she said a grand total of maybe nine English words in total.
She wasn't really a sucky customer, per se, but we got into a lot of trouble battling across the English language. She was remarkably patient for what we both had to deal with from each other as a result. :-/ She never smiled, but she never frowned or lost her patience / temper either. Amazing, really.
So she walks up to me and shows me a ring of four KW1 keys. (Each was a different key. Kinda important.) She looks up at me and asks "Keys? You make?"
So I jumped at the opportunity. "Sure! *Looks at the keys* I can do 'em. How many would you like of each?"
"Four."
Okay, so, sixteen keys.
"Sixteen keys, coming right up! ^_^ It'll be ten minutes or so, is that okay"
"Four."
"... um, alrighty. Come back later then."
So I get to work. Many minutes later and some very patient wisened looking customers at the desk later, I finish and turn around to find her wandering around, as they always do. I set out to put each group of four into a separate bag so they wouldn't confuse her. I now have four of each key in four separate bags.
But then she does something unexpected. We begin a game of "WTF is happening here?" as she takes a single bag and dumps out the contents, and pushes the other three bags back at me, and says "pay?" and points to the desk.
"Err, no, please pay at the register. ... but don't you want these keys? you wanted sixteen, right? I put each set of copies in a different bag so you wouldn't mix them up."
She blinks at me confusedly, and pulls her four keys that are lying on the desk outside of their bag closer to her, looking at me expectantly.
As gently as I can, because I'm not sure she has grasped this concept, given her apparent behavior, I reach across the desk and maneuver the keys into the air to compare them side by side to show them that they are all the same copy. She was going to go home with four of the same key; But ANY random key!! I can't let her do that.
At this point, for about five minutes, (Which, in real-time, seems a lot slower than a twelfth of an hour.) she drags keys forward to herself and counts the keys on her keyring one at a time as such: "One, two, three, four," and does nothing more than that to indicate to me her internal dialogue and intentions, while I show her that dragging random keys toward herself to take home will not help her in the slightest.
So I take out all four, remove her originals from the ring, and place them in a row on the desk. I remove all of the keys from the bag, and stack them beneath their original key.
She seems to grasp this concept eventually, after I show each key side by side, and she picks up one key from each stack and drags them toward herself. I bring the remaining twelve keys closer to myself, and bag the four keys she took for herself, and put her originals back on the ring.
This seemed to pacify her, and she turned into a turnip and flew to Venus inside a turtle's mouth while on fire. She looked up at me with such a strange expression of cute puppy dog and "What am I doing here again?" and emitted a curt "pay?" while pointing to the desk the keybags were on that we were standing at. I point up at the registers, and just say "there."
Business concluded. kthxbai.
I actually have no idea what nationality this lady was. She didn't speak anything but broken English (Fractured. Shattered. Annihilated.) The closest I can picture her as, is Ms. Swan from MadTV.
Thing is, her grasp of the English language was beyond minimal; it was virtually nonexistent. I think she said a grand total of maybe nine English words in total.
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Keys (And its variant "keyn" and "key")
- You
- Make
- pay
- thing (*Shudders Violently*)
She wasn't really a sucky customer, per se, but we got into a lot of trouble battling across the English language. She was remarkably patient for what we both had to deal with from each other as a result. :-/ She never smiled, but she never frowned or lost her patience / temper either. Amazing, really.
So she walks up to me and shows me a ring of four KW1 keys. (Each was a different key. Kinda important.) She looks up at me and asks "Keys? You make?"
So I jumped at the opportunity. "Sure! *Looks at the keys* I can do 'em. How many would you like of each?"
"Four."
Okay, so, sixteen keys.
"Sixteen keys, coming right up! ^_^ It'll be ten minutes or so, is that okay"
"Four."
"... um, alrighty. Come back later then."
So I get to work. Many minutes later and some very patient wisened looking customers at the desk later, I finish and turn around to find her wandering around, as they always do. I set out to put each group of four into a separate bag so they wouldn't confuse her. I now have four of each key in four separate bags.
But then she does something unexpected. We begin a game of "WTF is happening here?" as she takes a single bag and dumps out the contents, and pushes the other three bags back at me, and says "pay?" and points to the desk.
"Err, no, please pay at the register. ... but don't you want these keys? you wanted sixteen, right? I put each set of copies in a different bag so you wouldn't mix them up."
She blinks at me confusedly, and pulls her four keys that are lying on the desk outside of their bag closer to her, looking at me expectantly.
As gently as I can, because I'm not sure she has grasped this concept, given her apparent behavior, I reach across the desk and maneuver the keys into the air to compare them side by side to show them that they are all the same copy. She was going to go home with four of the same key; But ANY random key!! I can't let her do that.
At this point, for about five minutes, (Which, in real-time, seems a lot slower than a twelfth of an hour.) she drags keys forward to herself and counts the keys on her keyring one at a time as such: "One, two, three, four," and does nothing more than that to indicate to me her internal dialogue and intentions, while I show her that dragging random keys toward herself to take home will not help her in the slightest.
So I take out all four, remove her originals from the ring, and place them in a row on the desk. I remove all of the keys from the bag, and stack them beneath their original key.
She seems to grasp this concept eventually, after I show each key side by side, and she picks up one key from each stack and drags them toward herself. I bring the remaining twelve keys closer to myself, and bag the four keys she took for herself, and put her originals back on the ring.
This seemed to pacify her, and she turned into a turnip and flew to Venus inside a turtle's mouth while on fire. She looked up at me with such a strange expression of cute puppy dog and "What am I doing here again?" and emitted a curt "pay?" while pointing to the desk the keybags were on that we were standing at. I point up at the registers, and just say "there."
Business concluded. kthxbai.
I actually have no idea what nationality this lady was. She didn't speak anything but broken English (Fractured. Shattered. Annihilated.) The closest I can picture her as, is Ms. Swan from MadTV.
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