prencils, please

Posted on November 14th, 2010 by mountain girl  |  2 Comments »

This little story happened a couple of weeks ago, but I was just thinking about it this morning and thought I’d jot it down here, if only to be remembered for future generations. Uncharacteristically, I have no pictures to show, but that doesn’t make the story any less true. It just allows your imagination complete freedom to go wild.

It was the day before Halloween, and we happened to be wandering through Whole Foods. They were having a little trick-or-treat event for kids where they gave them each a paper bag and sent them around the store to gather goodies wherever there was a balloon tied. Never one to pass up a free gift, I took Zia around to the designated treat distributors.

We came upon one employee, dutifully holding a basket of small packages of pretzels and a cup of orange Whole Foods pencils.

(Here I have to interject that Zia has always called pretzels “prencils”. The plot thickens.)

So the guy held out the cup and the basket and asked, “What would you like, pretzels or pencils?” Zia, delighted to see one of her favorite snacks, quickly responded, “Prencils!” Oh great, I thought, where did they ever come up with a choice combination like that. The guy snatched up two orange pencils and held them out proudly. “You’re the very first person to choose pencils over pretzels! Congratulations.” Zia looked a little bewildered, but took the pencils without a word.

Thankfully, we came upon another basket of pretzels (this time with no pencils) a few minutes later, so we didn’t need to embarrass the first pretzel guy OR knock his child language interpretation skills. Now really, what kid would put an “r” in pencils?

But then again, what kid would put an “n” in pretzels? Only one that I know of.

2 Responses to “prencils, please”

  1. Carlye says on :

    this totally tickled my funny bone. i love it 🙂

  2. Kate says on :

    thats hilarious!