There are many horror stories about the Italian mail service, but there are exceptions.
A friend of my father lives in a city with 100,000 inhabitants and ten post offices. In those days when mail was sorted by hand and area codes were unheard of, he received a postcard that did not have his name or street address.
What it did have — the only identifying information it had — was a drawing of his nickname: an ice-pick.
[Coworker] seems to believe every conspiracy going. It goes from being funny to genuinely causing concern about his welfare. He can get quite riled up about it if we try to point out the holes in his logic, so normally, I just smile and nod along, but today he has a bee in his bonnet and will not shut up.
Today’s conspiracy theory is that birds are somehow super-advanced spy robots controlled by either the government or some sort of secret society.
I’ve been trying to be polite and I’ve tried to ignore him, but he has started to get aggressive and offensive.
Coworker: “You’re just not as smart as I am. You’re a sheep who can’t see through the lies you’ve swallowed.”
Me: “Right, fine, okay. So, how many birds are robots?”
Coworker: “I, err, well…”
Me: “All of them? Some of them? One or two?”
Coworker: “All of them. Birds shouldn’t exist. The physics doesn’t work.”
Me: “Okay, so all birds are robots. What about the ones dead on the side of the road?”
Coworker: “What?”
Me: “Dead birds — you see them all the time. They’re not robots; I have seen as much.”
Coworker: “Well, I don’t. They must have been planted there.”
Me: “Planted there. Thousands of dead birds secretly and without being noticed, planted on all of the roads in the UK — no, the world.”
Coworker: “Well, yeah. It must be. It’s the only way it makes sense.”
Me: “Apart from the one that flew into your windscreen two weeks ago? You told me yourself that you couldn’t be deceived. How did that happen?”
His eyes glazed over as he tried to find some sort of excuse to come up with. He muttered something about doing some research but never mentioned it again.
Unfortunately, he moved on to a new stupid conspiracy the very next day.
I pick up four somewhat drunk men around the age of thirty in the centre of Copenhagen. After they get in the taxi, I ask where they’re going.
Customer #1: “Just drive south along the coast. We’re getting off in four different places.”
Within a few minutes of driving, I’m asked by the computer running the meter, the GPS, and so on, where I’ll end up and when I expect to be there. Because of this and because some people do tend to fall asleep when they’re a bit drunk, I ask where the last one of them is going.
Customer #1: “I’m going to [City thirty-five km south of Copenhagen].”
Me: “Where exactly in [City]?”
Customer #1: “It’s a very small town outside [City] called [Town].”
As it happens, I grew up in that very small town and I still have family living there, my mother being one of them.
Me: “Where are we going in [Town]?”
Customer #1: “It’s a small street called [Street].”
He is going to the very same small street my mother lives on.
Me: “And which number are we going to?”
Customer #1: “It’s number seven.”
I then look at him in the rear-view mirror.
Me: “That’s the new wooden house, isn’t it?”
His lower jaw actually dropped and I could almost see him thinking something along the lines of “Rain Man.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d passed that house thirty-five kilometres away numerous times, while they were building it, when visiting my mother further down the street.
It’s about nine or ten at night and I’m waiting in the drive-thru of a fast food chain that has one of those fancier soda machines that offers multiple different flavors. Personally, I enjoy peach-flavored variants of the usual soda brands. The employee that was helping me steps away to get my order. I’m just absentmindedly on my phone when a different employee seems to stumble up to the soda machine and just stare at it. After a few seconds, he speaks first before looking at me.
Employee: “Hey, you.”
Me: “Oh, uh, yes?”
Employee: “You’re the one that ordered peach [soda], right?”
Me: “Yes?”
Employee: “Is it good?”
Me: “I mean I like it a lot, so yeah, I guess.”
Employee: “Aha…”
He gets a small water cup, fills it up, swirls it around a bit like some people do with wine in wine glasses, and then raises it up towards me.
Employee: “Cheers.”
He then stumbled away the same way he did when he appeared. Cheers to you, too, my guy.
Customer: “I’d like a burger with no onion, no lettuce, no pickle, no cheese, no burger.”
Me: *After a moment of pause* “So… the buns with ketchup and mayo?”
Customer: “Oh, and no mayo.”
I have to get the manager because I have no idea if we can even do that.
Manager: “Sir, we do have meatless burgers, if you’d prefer?”
The customer declines.
Customer: “I want the buns with ketchup… Oh, and fries and water.”
After some button-pushing on the registers, the manager okayed it. I’m thinking that maybe this person ordered the bun and ketchup so that maybe they could make a French fry sandwich? It’s the only thing I can imagine at this point.
