Wednesday, October 13, 2010

a most excellent conversation

Last night, I went out for a beer with Molly, Hadley, Sam, Nancy, and Marta, and the following conversation happened (I'm paraphrasing because it was in french):

Nancy: wait, I want to ask you guys about something, does this happen in your country?

Marta: (laughing) oh yeah, we talked about this yesterday.

Nancy: whatever. ok.  when you send a letter, do you have to buy a stamp to put on it?

Americans: yes.

Nancy: so, like, you put it all in an envelope, then you stick a stamp on it?

Americans: yes.

Nancy: that is so weird, because--

Marta: yeah, we talked about this for like 3 hours yesterday.

Nancy: no, for like 15 minutes.  well anyway, in Venezuela, you just bring your letter to the post office and buy an envelope and then they mail it for you.

Marta: yeah, but the envelope must have a stamp on it already.

Nancy: no, you don't put anything on it.  There's no stamp.

Marta: yeah but that's just because you've never looked at it.  There must be either a stamp or some kind of built-in stamp on the envelope, or else they put it on after you leave.

Nancy: I don't think so.

Americans: yeah but there must be some kind of indication on there that you've paid the postage...

Nancy: I don't know...

So this conversation went in circles for about 45 minutes, and we ended up agreeing to disagree.  We couldn't believe a silly little thing like sending a letter could be so different

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