Getting back into the swing.

Don't worry. This isn't going to be Jago Ranting Quarterly. I'm alive.

So, last week, I was minding the store on a slow Friday morning. An older gentleman came in, looking for some compressed air. I showed him what we had.

"How much is it," he asks.

"Ten dollars," I reply.

So when I tell him it'll be $10.70 at the till including taxes, he almost blows up at me!

"You told me it was ten dollars!"

"Well, yes, before taxes, sir."

"How much is that?"

"Seven per cent, sir. Same as always."

"The government was supposed to lower that!"

I wasn't going to go into how that was just a promise that the Conservatives made, and that in a minority government, it'll be hard to get that ratified, since I didn't want to get into an argument about that. So I just shrugged.

"The government, always lying," he said. "If we were in Norway, there'd be only one way we deal with liars: The firing squad!"

In my mind: "Um, what?"

"It doesn't matter if he'd be the prime minister. If he lied, firing squad!"

"Oh."

Now, I've never been to Norway, but it's the largest slice of my heritage. (My Grandpa Dokken's family was from there.) And I'm pretty sure capital punishments by way of executions aren't really the way things work there anymore. But this gentleman was old, so who knows? All I could do was listen as he talked about firing squads for ANY offense.

In any case, he buys the compressed air and leaves.

Now I was opening on Saturday by myself, and managed to miss my alarm and sleep in until 9:45. The store opens at ten. So I hurriedly dressed, didn't shower, and drove as fast as I could to work. I got there to open at about 10:10. A half hour later, guess who walks in?

"I'm here to return this air. It doesn't work."

I figure out that the old man just didn't take off the plastic safety latch, but he already bought a new can from the Sony Store.

"You weren't open at ten," he said. I did say that we did open late, but I didn't bring up the fact that it was my fault for sleeping in. For all I knew, there might only be one sort of punishment for tardiness in Norway: FIRING SQUAD!

So what subject does he get into again? Yup, you guessed it. After I returned his money, he left, but not after telling me about his favourite form of recreation. (Well, no, instead, he talked about the FIRING SQUAD!)

Sometimes, you meet the strangest people...