cleaning out the scraps of paper from about my room again?

why, yes! I am!

(Expansion on a point-form list on the back of a lottery receipt.)

firsts this week [25th-30th April]:

1) First time I heard some one ask for du Maurier cigarettes with proper French pronunciation (because he was Francophone). I was stunned that I hadn't noticed until that point that we all say it incorrectly.
2) First time I described a total with "oh-one" representing "$x.01". Every other time it's just the flat dollar amount, "and one cent," or, "and a penny." This oh-one came out of nowhere ... Not like I thought the customer wouldn't get it or I was overly tired or anything. Weird & fluky.
3) First time a customer was unable to pay for the gas they had pumped -- and this happened with TWO people in the same day! It is bizarre to be sympathetic for their embarrassment & their predicament but to also be shrewd & avoid getting bamboozled. I did consider how I would feel paying their bills out of pocket if they didn't return. They both returned.
The first guy was flustered and visibly exasperated by his situation and, while swiping his debit card, commented sarcastically that this was turning out to be a "great" day. He was half-smiling, not prepared to lie down to a poopy Monday morning just yet but still clearly had a few things on his mind. I gestured out the windows behind him and offered, "Well, at least the weather's nice..." with a tone I hoped would allow the comment to either be dismissed entirely (in case he was not in the mood) or taken as a piece of disarming irony. The sky was mad grey and drizzly, as I remember it. He laughed.
When he left, he made eye-contact deliberately and said, "Thanks very much for... everything." He seemed incredibly sincere with his gratitude which surprized me. It was encouraging because I was trying very hard to play it off and preserve his dignity in some sense.


That's just one piece of paper...I don't even feel like looking at others and that is how we end up with cluttered bedrooms!