srah blah blah

Just went to Kmart...

Just went to Kmart with Alex to pick up his Western Union transfer. Four things about it were quite interesting.

1) "Do you have any kind of identification besides this passport?" - I get that you can't read Spanish. Maybe you don't even know that that is Spanish you're reading (see speaking Chilean). But passports are accepted at borders the world over and I should think they would be enough for Kmart. Anyone who's ever seen a passport knows that they generally have the same information on them, so just ask the bearer to point out which is the expiration date and passport number if you can't figure them out. I don't think it is going to do Alex much good to try to pass off his birthday as his passport number.

2) Alex's first name - This one is, for once, not a reflection on American ignorance but rather some kind of problem on the Chilean end: Alex's first name was in the transfer file as "Alen"

3) Alex's middle name - "Alen" is not that funny on its own, but it's a lot funnier when you put it together with his middle name, which was displayed as "Patricia". Hee hee hee.

4) Where are you from, anyway? - Alex signed the check several times and the guy down the counter said "You signed that twice. Was it once in English and once in Arabic?" Even though Alex doesn't look particularly Arab, I could sort of get it. He swooped all over the place - it didn't particularly look like Roman lettering, we've been dealing with this kid for several minutes while he processes his money transfer and he's using a passport as ID. He's 'furren' and might as well be Arab. HOWEVER...

4a) this comes on top of Speaking Chilean Computer Lab Guy, who originally thought Alex was Nepalese AND

4b) after Alex explained that people just sort of wrote all big and loopy and all over the place in LATIN AMERICAN countries ("hint hint that I am neither Arab nor Nepalese" unsaid Alex) the guy went on to talk about how signatures were hard enough to read in English and he couldn't imagine writing them both ways. Strangely enough, Spanish and English use the same alphabet.

Alex is a nice guy and doesn't take things personally. That's my job. Actually, this time I found it surprisingly amusing rather than offensive.

Which reminds me that according to Incessantly Talking Girl, "In Hispanic countries, women are considered as second-class citizens, isn't that right Bille?"

srah - Monday, 3 December 2001 - 4:54 PM
Tags: pato, united states

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