The Quest

- NARRATIVE ESSAY -
- THE QUEST -

Feeling quite tired and hungry, my friend and I entered the food court of the
Everett Mall. Looking around, I decided that I was going to get some Chinese food. I
turned to my friend and told him, he said that he would too. We then made our way over
to the Chinese food counter. Upon arriving, I realized a possible problem; we only had
Canadian money. I walked up to the woman at the counter, and asked her if they
accepted Canadian money there.
"No, sorry, we only accept American money," she responded.
I asked if there was anyplace in the mall that I could exchange my money, more
specifically, a bank. She thought for a moment or two, then said,
"Uhhh, there's an ATM by the door over there."
Feeling a little frustrated, I explained to her that an ATM would not suffice. I
needed a bank, with a teller, so I could exchange my money. She looked down and
thought about this for a few moments, then ever so slowly, she brought her head up with a
dumb look on her face and said,
"The telephones are around the corner over there."
Dumbfounded by the stupidity of this woman, my friend and turned around and
walked away, laughing. When we were out of earshot, in a mocking tone, I said to my
friend,
"Hi, I'm an American, I'm a dumb-ass!"
With that defeat behind us, we continued on our quest for some American money.
Eventually, by wandering aimlessly about the mall, we managed to find an information
desk. I walked up to the woman behind the desk, and said,
"Hi, would I possibly be able to exchange my Canadian money for some American
money?"
With a really confused look on her face she responded with, "What do you mean?"
I reached into my pocket, and pulled out my twenty dollar bill. Waving it in her
face, I repeated the question. It took a few seconds, but she finally seemed to figure out
what I was saying.
"No, but you can exchange your money at the service desk upstairs in Thrifty's."
Finally, we were making some progress, only one problem, we'd never been here
before. We had no idea where to find Thrifty's.
"Where would that be," I asked her.
"Thrifty's? Oh, that's right next to Payless Drugs," was her response.
"Oh, gee thanks, that's allot of help," I said sarcastically as I walked away. So, my
friend and I spent the next ten minutes wandering the mall in search for Thrifty's or a map
of the mall. We finally spotted a sign at the far end of the hallway that read 'Thrifty's'.
When we saw this, we started to make our way towards it. When we got to the entrance
of the store, we saw what we believe to be the only mall map in the building. We made
our way to the escalator and went upstairs. From the top of the escalator we could see a
large sign that read 'service' hanging above a desk. We walked to the desk, and once
again I posed my now tedious question.
"Oh, sorry, you have to go to the service desk to do that," was her response. My
friend and I, in unison, looked up at the large 'Service' sign.
"Isn't this the service desk?" I asked. With a very derogatory tone, she answered
with a simple, no. I said to her,
"So if this isn't the service desk, do you think that you could possibly tell me where
I might be able to find it?" She seemed to be a little taken aback by this comment and it
took her a little while to recover. After this pause, she said,
"Well, the service desk is located in the Hallmark card section."
Getting a little frustrated, in a very touchy tone, I said, "Oh, Do you think you
could possibly tell me where I could find this?"
"Well, basically, if you were to walk straight through that wall over there, you'd be
right there," she said dumbly. Taken aback by the stupidity of yet another American, my
friend and I turned and walked away. Before we got out of earshot, my friend loudly said
to obviously not just me,
"I guess those Americans have super powers or something, because the last time I
checked, us Canadians couldn't walk through walls. What about you?"
"I don't know," I said, "I guess they must." we spent a few more minutes walking
around trying to find this Hallmark section. We finally found it, and walked up to the
service counter. Once again, I asked the same old question that I'd been asking for what
seemed like hours now. And surprisingly enough, the response was,
"Uh, ya, let me just check the exchange rate first." A little surprised, I figured that
she must be a Canadian, especially when she recognized my twenty dollar bill. When I
finally got my American money, a pultry fourteen dollars for my twenty Canadian, I heard
my friend say,
"Whoah, you guys need new money, maybe with a little color in it." We then
turned and left. We were now on a new quest, this time for some lunch.