Somewhere between duck calls and change

So, kind of a funny story. At least I think so.

As some of you may know, I had the opportunity to go down to Ecuador for a missions trip. My friend Mitchell and I stayed with a family down there (they had 1 daughter and 1 son) and we kind of became part of their family while we were there. Once we got back, we decided that we should get them something to say thank you for the use of their home. We just now got around to actually getting what we wanted to get for them. For the parents we got coffee, for the girl we wanted a teddy bear with something with Huskers on it, and for the boy, we wanted to get a football, as opposed to a futbol, which is all they have down there. So here is where the story actually takes place.

In order to get what we wanted for the kids, we decided that the best place to go would be Scheels because it seems like they have everything, at least everything that is somewhat related to sports. So we went at like 8:45 on Tuesday night, hoping that they would still be open. Low and behold, they closed at 9, so we were able to look for about 15 minutes. We found the bear right away and didn't have much discussion about that because guys just don't talk about bears or stuffed animals in general. But when it came to the football, it took us at least 10 minutes to pick out the right one, because as you know, footballs are very important items and can't be decided upon in a hurry. We had to find the right size and make sure it was appropriately pumped up and we had to decide whether or not we wanted to have a Nebraska logo on the side; there were just so many things we had to figure out.

Well during this whole time, there were probably, I would have sworn, to be about 200 kids running around with duck calls and they were blowing them constantly. Now I hadn't noticed them much, or at least hadn't been bothered by them very much, but at one point in time, I looked over at Mitchell and his eyes were wide open and he just says, "I want to kill those ducks." What made it worse was that as soon as he said that, one of the kids came over and blew her little duck call right at us, as if she knew what Mitchell had just said and was doing this as an act of defiance.

So we finally came to a decision regarding the football, which was good because they actually started turning the lights out on us. So we went to go checkout with our teddy bear and football. Now somehow I had accumulated probably a pound of change that previous week, and I absolutely hate carrying change around, except I do need at least two coins so that I can move them around in my pocket (I don't just move them around randomly, I actually have a pattern that I do - just ask and I'll show you if you're really that interested), but this is all beside the point. Hold on while I go back and read what I've written so far so that I can get back on track.

Okay. So I had a lot of change. I decided that this would be a perfect place to get rid of some of it. I had a gift card, so I gave that to the cashier and told her to be patient with me because I had a lot of change that I wanted to get rid of. I realized as soon as I started counting it that this was probably the last person that this cashier would check out for the day, and here I am giving her a ton of change to count. I apologized and told her that I hoped that she hadn't had a bad day because I would probably come off as a huge jerk. Now, for some reason, Mitchell and I became extremely talkative, more so than we had been while we were there; perhaps it was the sight of my literal handful of change that put a lighter mood on the ordeal. So we started talking back and forth and actually were asking the cashier questions assuming that she wanted to be a part of our conversation. It was one of those things where if you were on the outside looking in, it would appear to be really funny and random I think. Here is a little bit of the dialogue that went on while we were checking out:

Me: "I'm really sorry, but I need to get rid of this change. I hope you haven't had a terrible day, because this will probably make me look like a huge jerk."
Cashier: "No, it's okay."
Mitchell: "Do those kids always blow those duck calls?"
Cashier: "Yea, pretty much."
Mitchell: "Isn't that annoying?"
Cashier: "Yea"
Me: "Okay, how much is that?"
Cashier: "Three dollars"
Me: "Okay, hold on."
Mitchell: "I don't think I could work here with all that going on."
Me: "Okay, there's 44 cents. How much more do I owe you?"
Cashier: "Nine dollars"
Mitchell: "That was a lot of change. Do you feel lighter now?"
Me: "I kind of do actually. I'm so glad I was able to get rid of all of that."
Me(talking to Cashier): "Again, I'm really sorry."
Cashier: "It's fine"
Me: "I think that is the most change I've ever used in one place."
Mitchell: "I bet."

This conversation was not drawn out at all either. It probably took place about as fast as you just read it. And this was only a snippet of what our conversation consisted of; there was plenty more that I don't remember fully. In the end, I used precisely $3.44 worth of change (told you I had a lot), and it felt really good to get rid of it. Now what made this whole thing funnier was that as we were leaving, Mitchell started talking about what just took place. I probably wouldn't have had a second thought about it, but Mitchell just started laughing about how funny our whole ordeal with the cashier was. This got me to realize how odd and comedic it was and we started discussing whether or not we were a pain to the cashier or if we were entertaining. I said that if I would have been in her place and had a long day like I'm assuming she had, I would have found us entertaining. But maybe it was more wishful thinking. Well, anyways, we convinced ourselves that we were more entertaining than annoying and left it at that.

Hopefully this wasn't a long, boring story. I found it pretty funny, but maybe it was just one of those things where you had to be there.