Storage
On our return to the apartment one night, the couple next
door were having a conversation with some other people over the wall. They were going on about how everything shuts
down at the end of summer:
“Have you seen this place in winter?
“Yes. I’ve seen it on
Google Earth – it’s like a ghost town.”
“Everything gets put
into storage, even the flowers. “
They were also whingeing about beggars and saying they
weren’t really homeless and it was ‘their job’ to beg – they had even seen them
getting on the bus! I had to bite my lip
to stop myself saying something they wouldn’t like.
We had a laugh later though at the visions this interchange
conjured of streets being rolled up and put in a big warehouse until next year.
The following night the searing heat was broken by a
torrential but quick storm. After
getting drenched coming back from town, we cleaned ourselves of mud and sat
under the sheltered patio. The couple
next door were whingeing about it of course.
I was tempted to say “Well, everything needs a good wash before it gets
put into the big warehouse for winter.”
Supermarket
One evening we were out having a drink when I nipped to the
supermarket for tobacco. There was a
large young man in front of me at the till.
He was paying for a small bottle of pop with a pile of small change, and
taking ages about it. The cashier said
to him “It’s okay. We have an hour until
we close”.
When the large man had finally finished and gone, I said to
the cashier “Well, at least you’ll have some change now”.
In response he pointed to a pile of 1 and 2 cent pieces and
declared “we don’t want this crap. These
Europeans* can’t spend it at home so they bring it here to use. We don’t want it either, but we have to smile
and be polite...”
“Oh well”, I said, “it gives us something to laugh about.”
*for ‘Europeans’ read ‘Germans’
