Speechless Twice In One Day

I teach middle school, therefore NOTHING surprises me.  I rarely show displays of utter shock because NOTHING surprises me. 

I'm also rarely rendered actually speechless.  And I was more stammering and stuttering than speechless in these 2 situations.  But I thought they were worthy of note.

The first was at the dump.  We don't have city wide trash collection because, well, we aren't in a city.  And since most of the people that stay in the campground are from cities, they think if they just cast their unwanted items willy nilly near the dumpster, some great god of trash will make them disappear.

And unfortunately, I am that god of trash in the summer.

We have a dumpster for HOUSEHOLD trash.  This means your kitchen and bathroom trash can trash.  Not your picnic tables.  Not your entire deck that you are replacing.  Not your tv, refrigerator, propane tanks or anything else that you don't want.  We have a sign specifically saying that none of that stuff can be left at the dumpster, and yet, it gets left there all the time.

So, I run over right away to get rid of it because, like magnets, cast off items attract other cast off items and before we know it, it's a flea market of pure crap in which you find nothing but broken items, outdated electronics and possibly, grandchildren.  

This means a hair-raising trip to the dump.  Hair-raising because my father doesn't have a lot of use for brakes that work well.  The 1.5 mile trip to the dump has taken years off my life many times.

So, I had some rotten wooden crap to take to the dump.  The process is simple:  drive onto the scale, tell them who you are, dump your stuff and then come back on the scale to get reweighed and pay.  We are such frequent fliers, we have a charge account there, but this particular trip was for one particular woman's stuff and she had given me cash.  If the amount was equal to the cash she gave me, I was going to pay in cash and if not, I was going to charge.

Can you see how this simple word problem could stump the dump attendant?

This was a man I hadn't seen before and he seemed awfully entertained that I was dumping this stuff.   People are always amused when I drive the dumptruck but they don't usually snicker and chortle as they are weighing.

So, I weighed, I told who I was, I dumped and I came back.

And he said "that's $19.80". 

"Actually," I said, "I will charge it then, sorry."

They just built a new gate house where the scale is, but it's still lacking in that they have to just about climb out the window to give you your bill or you just about have to climb out of the truck to get it.  So I got out.

And the man handed me the bill and it was $25.

"Oh, is it more because I charged?"

"No.  Hmmm.  Oh, it's because you got off the scale.  Go stand at the truck.  ON the scale."

"REALLY?  My weight is enough to change the entire price????  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I have to go STAND ON THE SCALE because my weight makes that much difference?"

So, I stoood there, leaning against the truck, like a complete imbecile, incredulous.  It kinded of reminded me of this idiot.

It wasn't until I told the story 3 times that I realized the whole thing is backwards.  If I got OFF the scale, then the amount would have been LESS, not MORE, so he just totally screwed it up.

The second time that same day that I was left sputtering and stammering was on my parents' deck with my aunt, uncle, my parents and k-ster.  K-ster claims that I read 50 Shades of Gray and said, "Oh yeah, isn't that what you just read?"

My jaw actually fell down.

"WHAT?????????  The most recent book I read was called The Notorius Benedict Arnold, a 5th grade reading book that I was reading for a committee I'm on.  I AM NOT reading 50 Shades of Gray!"

But I did turn 50 shades of red as my family rolled all over the deck laughing themselves silly.

And k-ster is 50 shades of black and blue from the piece of my mind I beat him with.

Linking up here and here. and NOT reading 50 shades of anything!