Paper

I went paper shopping last Saturday and I stopped by Print Icon on West 18th Street. I was searched for a few sheets of paper with very specific specs, and I found them easily in the shop. That was good. They don't have an interesting selection of printed stationary, notebooks, or accessories, so all I purchased were the few sheets of paper.

While I waited for the clerk, a woman rushed into the store and to the counter. "Do you sell towels?" she asked.

"Dowels?" the clerk asked her.

"Yes, towels."

"Dowels, like wooden dowels?" He looked at me, "Did she say dowels?"

"No," the woman and I said at the same time. "Towels."

"With a T," I added.

"Towels? Towels?" the clerk said. I'm sure he knows what towels are, but working with paper all the time, he might forget other vocabulary.

"Towels," the woman said again. "Maybe you have them downstairs."

The clerk looked completely baffled. "Do we have towels? Downstairs?"

"You don't," I told him. "You don't have any towels."

"We don't have any towels," the clerk told the woman standing next to me, and she ran out of the store.