I Can't Understand You...

Understanding others has never been one of my high points in life. I’m pretty good at communicating my thoughts, mind you, in fact I might even be a bit too proficient at it, but when it comes to interpreting just normal conversation from others it can get a bit interesting.

Some claim that I have “creative hearing” and perhaps they’re correct. It’s not really that unusual in regular conversation, for instance, if someone were to say “I’m having friends over for dinner”, for me to then reply curiously, “You’re salving your end this winter?!” Maybe I just really secretly wish that someone would tell me something unusual like that they were planning on salving their end this winter, I’m not sure. Regardless, this is precisely the kind of thing that I hear on a frequent basis.

Sometimes I’m just a bit out of the loop and my creative visual mind runs away with me. For example, I was setting up a date not too long ago with someone of which I’d never met before in person. While speaking on the phone, we agreed to meet at this so-called “jazz” festival (although they seemed to be playing everything but). I’m pretty easy to recognize even if you’ve never met me in person before but I was immediately a bit nervous about picking her out of a crowd of who knows how many people. She reassured me, though, that she would be pretty easy to spot: “I’ll pretty much be the only single mom in her early thirties, pushing around a 2 year old in a stroller, with a blue tooth.”

Momentary silence formed on my end of the phone. A blue tooth? Panic instantly started creeping inside of me. Does this woman have some sort of birth defect? Being the outrageously visual person that I am naturally, I immediately imagined a half walrus/half woman with one strikingly long blue tooth dangling out of the side of her mouth, perhaps chomping on a recently caught fish. Or, I’ve heard of people getting gold teeth…is this some new fad that I have yet to hear about, especially since I’m pretty out of fads for the most part anyway? For a few seconds I strongly considered weaseling out of the date, scanning my brain for some sort of viable excuse. I couldn’t ask her what she meant, of course, because what if she really did have a blue tooth hanging out of her mouth! No, it was best to keep quiet and simply suppress it.

The date was the following evening and so there I was walking around the jazz festival, truly not sure of who I was looking for since I didn’t understand what was meant by the “blue tooth” reference, my only true hint of picking her out of the crowd. I walked the complex a couple times, basically keeping my options open for just about anyone that mildly fit the description, and then luckily she found me. It was then that I noticed the strange looking mobile phone device hanging off of her ear, something I had never seen before. Ah, the “blue tooth”… If I was more techy perhaps these confusing moments wouldn’t happen to me? Yeah, you’re right, I’d probably a find a way anyhow.

It’s not always me with the understanding issue, though. My latest adventure was at a local Caribou Coffee establishment located in the Minneapolis skyway close to where I work. I had received a $10 gift card from my boss for Christmas and I was simply trying to use it up, having only $1.70 left on the card.

I ventured into the skyway towards one of the 500 Caribou Coffee’s within 3 minutes walking distance. I kid you not; there are so many mini coffee houses in the downtown skyway that you’d think they’re secretly breeding like rabbits after hours. Upon walking in to the closest one I could find, no one was in line, and in fact both the establishment and the staff looked pretty relaxed, like they could use a customer walking in who wants to use up his Caribou card. I took this as a sign. I walked up to the counter and a young semi-hip mildly flamboyant guy, probably around age 23, took my order.

I handed him my Caribou card which he promptly swiped through the card reader. A receipt quickly emerged and he seemed a bit frazzled, like perhaps it was his first day or something similar. He started handing me the receipt but stopped in mid-reach, pulling the receipt back to read it himself. After grimacing and reading it over, he said, “Oh, it looks like you owe another $2.35.” I expected this so no big deal, and I handed him my Visa card for the remainder. He then swiped that card through the card reader and just as I thought everything was cool total confusion seemed to reign.

The clerk kept waiting patiently at the printer, sort of like a doctor expecting a patient to give birth at any moment to twins or triplets, but nothing ever came out. Puzzled, he started hitting random buttons on the register, definitely the technical thing to do, mind you, and then sighed loudly, then hit a few more buttons, then sighed loudly again, and then finally whined out loud to no one in particular, “Heeeey, this thing isn’t woooorking…” He glanced over at a young girl, I’m assuming perhaps the manager although she looked about 13 years old, and she completely ignored him. Mind you, she was standing only about 4 feet from him but she ignored him just the same…

The clerk stood there, shocked by the ignoring, and whined again in a much louder voice, “Heeeey, something’s wrong with this thiiiing.” Again, she totally ignored him, or at least pretended to considering the fact that I think half the place could pick up his whine loud and clear. He decided to try a different approach. “Maaaary, how do I make this thiiiing print?”

Mary finally took notice and wandered over. In a slightly disgusted voice, she asked, “What are you trying to do exactly?”

The clerk, mildly talking with his hands, said, “Well, this guy placed his order and swiped his Caribou card through the machine…”

Mary cut him off, looking at me accusingly. “He did what?” I wasn’t sure how I got pulled into this but I gently shook my head back and forth, trying desperately to convey the message that I didn’t touch his machine.

“He paid with a Caribou card, and he swiped it through the machine…” The clerk paused momentarily, and then corrected himself, “Um, well, I mean I swiped the card through…”

Mary, clearly very impatient, didn’t care to hear the rest. “When that happens just hit this button, push this, and hit this button.” Even before the clerk could even possibly bark any sort of protest, she walked away again leaving him still without any receipt or any clue.

A moment later, he whined again, “Maaaarrrryyy, it’s still not working.”

Rolling her eyes, Mary returned. “What now?” I would have thought that she would have learned that this was evidently the wrong question to ask but clearly Mary wasn’t catching on.

The clerk began again. “This guy swiped his card through the machine…” A slight pause occurred, and then he said, “…well, no, I swiped the card through the machine, but then the receipt didn’t come out…” This story was starting to sound familiar. Once again, Mary attempted to show him what to do but the clerk was wising up. “No, you see, he swiped his Caribou card through the machine…” A slight pause and then “…well, no, I swiped his card through, but then there was still a balance of $2.35.”

Mary finally got it. “Oh! Okay, so what happened then?”

“Well, then he swiped his Visa card through the machine…” Another slight pause occurred, and then, “…well, no, I swiped his card through, but the receipt never came out.”

I’m not entirely sure how many times we went through this loop of him insisting that I swiped my card(s) through his machine but it was more than any normal human being should be subjected to. In the end, as you probably already guessed, the clerk missed some button in between swiping the cards and my Visa card never even really registered in the machine, hence the non-existence of my receipt. He then asked, “Can I see your card again?” and I could only think to myself, “Oh cr*p, not again! Please let it go through…please!!!”

As I turned around to leave, I noticed that the once vacant Caribou establishment now had a long line forming out the door. A friend of mine had been waiting for me during the transaction and as I walked up looking quite frazzled he asked, “What the heck was taking so long? Your coffee has been sitting on the counter for like 5 minutes.”

I smiled slightly and said, “Well, you see, I swiped the card through the machine…er, I mean, he swiped the card through…”

Ironically, I’m sort of craving a coffee from Caribou as I write this. I’m not sure I’m feeling that brave, though. Maybe I should consider getting cash out of the ATM first. It just might be worth the extra effort.