RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33649, 26 September 1974, Page 21

RANDOM REMINDER

THRIFT

One might imagine that the men and women who spend their working hours in shops, offices and businesses suffer from the enormous boredom of repetition. Wrapping socks, taking money, giving change must lose its charm after a few years, and with perhaps a few exceptions, the faces of the customers probably assume a grey sameness. But there are sometimes diversions to brighten the shoo assistants’ lives. In a Christchurch shoe store very recently a lady of advanced years and gentle

demeanour entered the premises and was approached by one of the young men. She asked if there was a transistor radio in the shop. He said there was one, out the back. Could she borrow it for a few minutes? She was given a puzzled affirmative. The radio was brought out. the lady sat down, tuned in to the devotional service. heard it all through, switched off, handed back the radio, said thanks, and departed. And there is a dentist in Auckland who has not

yet stopped laughing, and wondering about the thrifty methods of some people, since he had a telephone call from one of his patients. The man asked if he could have a top dental plate remodelled. The dentist was a little puzzled, and asked a few questions. The plate, it transpired, had belonged to the man’s wife, deceased some time before. And why did he want it remodelled? For the use of the woman he had recently married.