It’s official. Costa Rica’s educational system has gone down the drain.
I stopped by Torneca today to buy six screws of a specific size. As soon as I arrive at the cashier, their system goes down. A flustered lady singals a bored-looking fellow and asks him to write me a manual bill for the screws, each one worth 81 colones (about $0.15). The fellow disappears, blank bill in hand.
Five minutes later he returns triumphantly, having written on the bill “6 screws - 81 colones”. He hands it to the woman, and then the fun begins.
Woman: “That’ll be 81 colones.”
Me: “Are you sure?”
Woman: “Yes, look”, she replies, showing me the bill.
Bored Guy: “Oh, no, that’s 81 each…”
Woman (Confused): “But why didn’t you put the total in?”
Bored Guy (Apologetic): “Well… I didn’t have a calculator…”
Me, just wanting to get the hell out: “It’s OK, it’s 486 colones.”
It’s 6 times 8, you know, not like I just calculated the square root of pi to the 12th position and elevated to the power of the number of people in the store. Still the woman ignores me, probably thinking I’m trying to rip them off by pulling a number out of a hat, and proceeds to rummage through her stuff to find a calculator. After stabbing it with her chubby fingers, she turns back to me.
Woman: “That’ll be 480 colones.”
I hand her the 500 colones I have in hand. She gives me back my change. I check it - she just gave me 105 colones.
Me (showing her the coins): “You should have given me twenty.”
The Woman is absolutely flustered by now but, probably deciding to trust me, takes out 20 colones and hands them to me. Her eyes pop out of her head when I hand the 105 back. I didn’t bother to explain - she’s probably still trying to figure it out.