The Dimwitted Child

Recently I was asked if it’s hard living in a city where I can’t read most of the signs or understand most of what’s being said. I said no — not at all — as long as you don’t mind being suddenly demoted in status from that of a normal adult to that of a retarded person or a dimwitted child.

That may be an exaggeration, but there are times when I’ve felt really stupid. Many things can be figured out by context or familiarity, but some things are just different, and those things would be confusing even if I did speak the language.

Danish money, for example, is just different. When I first got here, I was very confused by the coins. Sure, you can look for the number on the coin, but when you first arrive and you go to a store, there’s no time for that. It turns out that the plain bronze coins are worth much more than the exotic silver ones with a hole in the middle, but at first it made no sense to me at all.

I remember standing at the counter at Seven-Eleven. The girl at the register told me the amount, in Danish. No problem — I looked at the screen on the register to get the price, and then… and then I looked down at a big pile of various coins in my hands…and I realized that it would take me at least thirty seconds to find an appropriate amount. And thirty seconds is an eternity in Seven-Eleven when six people are standing behind you.

So I looked at the girl, smiled sheepishly, and offered her everything. I extended my cupped hands, full of money — probably around $200 for a $3 purchase — across the counter. She plucked the proper change out, and smiled at me encouragingly, as if to say, “Someday you’ll use money like a BIG person!”

In four days I will have been here a year, and now the money is completely familiar to me. I can whip out exact change or verify that I’ve gotten the correct change very quickly. I hadn’t thought about the humiliation of Seven Eleven in a while, but yesterday I was reminded.

My brother Diego is here, visiting me for two weeks. We were in the grocery store, and I was planning to pay for the coke he was buying. But the store was busy and I got distracted. When I turned around, I saw him, looking sheepish and extending his hands — full of strange coins — across the counter.

One Thought on “The Dimwitted Child

  1. That sounds familiar. It’s also amazing how honest most people are, when it would be easy to cheat you. When we landed in Madrid, Spain, on our first overseas trip, we were jet-lagged and in no condition to haggle. The Euro is simple (at the time, it was about equal to a U.S. dollar). We took a cab from the airport to the bus terminal and inquired as to the rate, time, etc. for a trip to Trujillo, Spain, some three hours away. The teller told us the amount. I handed over a bunch of bills and soon learned that the amount quoted to us was for BOTH of us. I was about to pay double. It would have been easy for the ticket seller to keep the full amount and chalk it up to a dumb American.
    Watch those kroners, Diego!

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