This is a story about a pencil. Lost, then found.
Charlotte went to Chicago this summer with her mom and uncle. They drove. Actually, from her reports anyway, it sounds as if she did most of the driving. Or a lot of it anyhow. She even drove on the Chicago freeways. That’s a big accomplishment for a sixteen-year-old from Birmingham, in my opinion.
The day after she got back (it was a Tuesday), she and I had lunch at a place called Cantina. It’d been highly recommended to us for its imaginatively authentic Mexican cuisine. She and I went to Austin a couple of years ago and we discovered what a real taco was all about. There was a sidewalk place just outside our motel that had breakfast tacos and coffee. I was hoping Cantina would have real tacos.
Our trip to Austin, by the way, was one of the best times we’ve had together. We stayed the Austin Motel on South Congress—THE place to stay when in Austin as far as I’m concerned. It has a pretty long history. I’m not sure if the designers of their sign meant it to be as suggestive as it is. Or consciously meant to.
At lunch, Charlotte presented me with the obligatory souvenir from her trip. She’s well-traveled. The Philippines a few years ago, Santa Barbara several times, Chicago once before.
We ordered with the cashier. They had the right kind of tacos. I ordered two, one fish and one veggie. The bill came to $18.65. I remarked to the cashier that that (1865) was the date the Civil War started. Charlotte immediately corrected me. OK, it was the ending date. She’d just taken AP US History (and got a perfect 5 on the AP test, I might add). Well, I ought to have known that, especially given my grad school focus of study. Really though, self-respecting American citizen ought to know that.
Well. On the subject of cash-register totals and years, I digressively recalled for the cashier and Charlotte, and with apologies to a women waiting behind us, a memorable experience with cash register totals: a long time ago, on two consecutive visits to the grocery store, my totals were $10.66. And I hadn’t even bought the same items. I never could remember exactly what happened in 1066, but I knew it was important. (Norman conquest? Spanish Armada? no that was Queen Elizabeth…or was it? Now I’m thinking it was that Norman Conquest, thanks to which thankfully we have some Romance in our language.)
That had really struck me, that it would happen twice in a row. I think they weren’t particularly impressed. Maybe slightly bemused. The cashier said that she didn’t pay much attention to the year/check-total connection, except when $19.79 came up. That being when she was born. That’s when I graduated from high school. (Or college? No, definitely high school.) So that means she’s around 31. I thought she looked younger than that. Charlotte disagrees.
I often notice year/check-total connections. Same with street numbers. Our house, for example, is 1612. Do you know of something interesting that happened in 1612? I do, but it took me a while.
Charlotte got some kind of fish sandwich, with fries. We’d planned to share the fries, but she kept on giving them to me even after I said no.
This is a story about a pencil. And it has a point. About which more later.
YOPI 