I buy a drainer for 12.99 euros. At the checkout I pay with a fifty euro note. The young man kindly asks if I can pay appropriately or otherwise with a debit card. I don’t want that, but I offer to add three euros. Panic sets in. He is unable to determine the correct amount that I will receive back. He confesses that math is not his strong point, because at school he thought he would never need it later. We laugh about it together. They come out with a colleague. I get forty euros back. “Is that two twenty-dollar bills?”
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A version of this article also appeared in the January 6, 2023 issue