Rarely am I privy to interesting interactions. However, today at the post office, I was privy to an interesting give-and-take, albeit a short one.

I walked in and there were three employees at the desk. Two were black ladies, one was Hispanic or Asian or something...didn't get a really good look, because I didn't care. Anyway, the Asian woman (we'll call her that, for whatever reason) was trying to explain to two older Hispanic men something about a zip code not being 60618 but 60625. Don't know what it pertained to, but whatever. She was speaking English, and they were not.

So I step up to the counter with one of the black ladies, and the two of them are yelling at the other woman to tell the guys, "If you don't understand me, learn English, or go to another post office," out loud because they were trying to find an employee who spoke Spanish. Then the one helping me goes on the time-tested "if you're gonna live in this country, learn the language. If I went to any of their countries and tried to speak English, they wouldn't let me. But we gotta learn Spanish. That's stupid." And she's conversing with the other black lady about this. Then, there's a pause, brief. And the 2nd black lady says something like, "That reminds me of when I went out for Chinese food the other night. I couldn't understand a thing they were saying. They should learn English if they're gonna serve people. You wanna talk about racism? I was the victim of the most blatant racism I ever heard of."

By then, I was gone from the counter. But I just found it to be a funny and interesting give-and-take.