Short Stories

There's a new edition to Marianne's interactions with the architect. He found his payment was missing 5 cents. She said she was pretty sure it was there, but he affirmed that it was missing---he counted ALL the coins twice. So Marianne made a cootie catcher (paper dealie for kids) and put 4 coins under some of the flaps and wrote 'no luck, it's lost' under the others. She then put the cootie catcher in 3 or 4 envelopes, increasing in size, and delivered it. The game continues; he's coming again for his 1 cent and she's dreaming up a new scheme for it now. Perhaps 1 cent in an olive in a jar of olives? 

Another humorous occurrence: Coming back from Libramont, I was using a Go Pass for my train ticket. For each trip you have to fill out the departure and arrival station and the date on the ticket, and then perhaps during the trip the conductor comes and punches it (perhaps not). This particular time the conductor came asking to see our tickets. I groggily gave him my filled-out ticket and waited for him to hand it back. Instead he studied my ticket and frowned and said something fast in French. When I asked what was wrong, he said something to this effect: 'I don't know what you've been smoking, but this says it's the 11th of January'. Horrified, I realized I had written the date like a crazy American, with the month first instead of the day. I started to worriedly explain, but he cut me off, handed back my ticket, and walked away laughing. Oh la la. The other kids with me remarked that since it didn't specify on the ticket which was the day and month my ticket technically wasn't wrong.  Even so, I'll try to be more European next time!