Two Heads, Half A Brain

(Two teenage girls, about fifteen years old, are in my store trying to buy perfume. On the counter, there are two bottles of our store brand perfume beside each other. There is a small bottle and there is a large bottle.)

Me: “So, the large bottle is $25.00 and the small bottle is $15.00.”

Customer #1: “Which bottle is the small one?”

Me: *confused* “The smaller one of these two.”

Customer #1: “Oh…”

(The girls wander around the store and comment on how cute our sandals are.)

Me: “Our sandals are really nice. They’re actually buy one, get one half off.”

Customer #2: “What do you mean?”

Me: “You buy one pair of sandals, and you get the second pair half off.”

Customer #2: “Wait, what?!”

(The girl looks at me genuinely confused. At this point, I have no other way to explain buy one get one half off, so I just repeat what I said.)

Me: “You buy one pair of sandals, and you get the other for half the price.”

Customer #1: “I don’t understand…”

(The girls eventually give up. As they walk out of the store, I overhear them talking to each other.)

Customer #1: *to Customer #2* “I don’t get what ‘Buy one, get one half off’ means!”