I’m a private English tutor in Spain, and from time to time I help my students with other subjects they are also being taught in English.

During an intense lesson in science and the reproductive system:

Me: “So, do you remember what we said about Adam and Eve, and why they have a belly button?”

Student: “Yes, I do. I also asked about it in religion class.”

Me: “Oh, really? And what did they say?”

Student: “The nun kicked me out!”

I high-fived him. Hard not to laugh! Question authority, little man!

I work at a money exchange facility. A girl approaches me in my office.

Customer: “How much is your service fee?”

Me: “Hello! Well, it depends on how much you are exchanging.”

Customer: “Yes, but how much is it?”

Me: “The maximum fee is 19.7%, but it depends on how much you want to exchange. How many dollars do you have?”

Customer: “No, I want to know in Euros how much it’s going to be.”

Me: “Ma’am, it’s a percentage, and it depends on the amount. It could be smaller, but you need to tell me how much you think to exchange”

Customer: *Patronizingly* “You don’t understand! Since it’s a percentage, how many Euros is it going to be?”

Me: “I’m sorry, no, I don’t understand. It’s a percentage; percentages depend on the total amount.”

Customer: “Yes, tell me how many Euros it will be on the total amount!!”

I just look puzzled.

Customer: “Never mind. I’ll ask somewhere else.”

Me: “Good luck!” 

Related:
They’re Not In The Upper Percentile, Part 2
They’re Not In The Upper Percentile

During my junior year of high school, my school decided to invite a scientist of some sort that studied the effects of climate change to come to talk to all of us. Sounds cool, right? That’s what we all thought, especially since they took up an entire class period’s worth of time for it, but we were all so wrong. This presentation went wrong on so many levels.

For starters, I’m not sure where the presenter was from, but he had a very thick accent and monotone voice and that, combined with the echoey-ness of the gym my whole school was crammed into, meant that we could barely make out a third of what he was saying.

Second, of the words we could understand, a lot of it was jargon that was quite a bit above most of our high-school brains and he had complete paragraphs on his slides you could barely read from a distance that also used a lot of the same jargon.

The most interesting part of the presentation was when the guy’s slides stopped working and IT had to come out to troubleshoot.

The next day, the administration apologized to us and praised us for being so good throughout the assembly. I’m still honestly not sure if they realized half of us fell asleep during it, which is why we were so “good.”

It’s the day before a large demolition derby and my coworker is helping a customer, who has a pretty thick country accent, try to find some paint for his derby car.

Coworker: “What kind of paint do you need?”

Customer: “Hi-temp paint for my derby car.”

Coworker: “Okay, well, we have high temp engine enamel, rated to 550F.”

Customer: “That’s not hot enough.”

Coworker: “Okay, well, we also have some exhaust paint that’s rated to 2000F.”

Customer: “Still not hot enough. You ever ridden in a derby car?”

Coworker: “No.”

Customer: “It runs at 5000 degrees.”

Somehow, my coworker manages to keep a straight face.

Coworker: “Well, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any paint rated that high.”

After the customer huffs out of the store, the coworker tells us the story.

Me: “He does know that 5000F is about half the temperature of the surface of the sun, and that the car would have melted long before that, right?”

I’m on register when a customer comes through my line. One of her items is a container of salad from the salad bar. I put it on the scale, punch in the code, and move it off to the side to be bagged.

Customer: “Wait, I thought the salad was $7.99 a pound.”

I glance at the screen, which clearly labels the salad at $7.99 a pound.

Me: “It is.”

Customer: “Then why is it $8.46?”

Me: “You have more than a pound of salad here. $7.99 a pound times 1.06 pounds equals $8.46.”

Customer: “But it’s $7.99 a pound.”

Me: “Yes, but since you have a little over a pound of salad, the total will be a little over $7.99.”

Customer: “But it’s supposed to be $7.99 a pound.”

Me: “It is.”

I point on the screen where it says, “1 large salad, $7.99 at 1.06 lbs,” immediately above the total of $8.46.

Me: “Look, you have 1.06 pounds of salad. Multiply that $7.99, and you get a total of $8.46 for the salad.”

Customer: “But I thought the salad was $7.99 a pound.”

I said nothing and quickly scanned in her remaining items. I don’t know how else I could have explained it to her, especially since the equation was printed on her receipt. And she kept saying “$7.99 a pound” like she knew it was a weighted item.