Fernando is retrieving change for a young man who had just rented one evening when said young man begins pawing around in Fernando's stamp card box. “Um...what are you doing?” Fernando asks.
“I think I've got a card in here. I want to see how many stamps I have.” See, every time someone rents, that someone gets a stamp on one of Fernando's business cards. Once the individual accrues ten stamps, he or she is entitled to a free rental. Fernando, as an option to the customer, keeps the card in a little box in the store if the person doesn't want to lose it to the dangerous world of couches/car seats/washing machines/dog mouths.
“I can find that out for you in about ten seconds,” Fernando says. He really doesn't like it when people dig around in the stamp card box.
“No, it's fine,” the obstinate young man replies. He pulls out a handful of cards and quickly rifles through them. “Where would mine be?”
Fernando sighs in consternation as the cards are crammed back in a place they definitely do not belong. “You realize that they're...well, they used to be alphabetized, right? That I had them divided up by the person's last name so that I can easily find who I'm looking for, and that they are now no longer in that condition?”
“I'm just trying to find my card. I put those back for you.”
“You shoved people with last names beginning with I somewhere around those who begin with P.”
“Hey, my last name starts with P. Just let me see how many stamps I have on my card...” The arm extends again.
Fernando at this juncture reaches out and places the box containing the cards on his office desk, well behind the counter and out of the reach of this overly inquisitive person. “That was going to be the next thing on my agenda, but something more pressing just came up. It seems I have to sort through this box of hundreds of cards to ensure they are in proper alphabetical order. Would you like to wait around for anywhere from ten to twenty minutes for me to finish this unanticipated project?”
The man left.
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