the benefits of an accent

Today I walked to the post office to get enough postage to mail my taxes. (They're done! Hooray!) While waiting in line, I noticed a woman speaking to a postal worker about a box she wanted to mail to Russia. She had a great accent and clearly didn't completely understand all of the customs associated with mailing packages. The postal worker patiently went over all options with her, showed her how the box should be packed, and even lent her the packing tape to do it with. The woman in front of me and I watched this interaction with fascination. After a few minutes, she said, "Maybe you have to have an accent to get that kind of help." I agreed that it was probably helpful. She said, "I can pull out a great German accent if I need to." I encouraged her to do so. 

Just then she was called up to the desk, and the Russian woman took her box and tape and went to pack it up. I was then called up to pay my extra $.25 in postage because my stamp was outdated. As I was digging through the change in my purse, the woman who was in front of me in line walked past me on the way out the door. "It doesn't work," she said. "Apparently you have to be from Russia."

Seen while walking to the post office: old woman with cane jaywalking across six lanes of merging traffic on main thoroughfare. She has more guts than I do. Or I have more brains than she does. Either way, crazy!