The Japanese robin

I asked, "Why?"

She answered, "If you buy two, they won't sing. Only buy one; then it will sing. When they are alone, they sing a lot. But if you have two or three, as we have here, they don't sing."

The price was thirty dollars. I asked her, "Can you reduce the price?"

She was so nice. She said, "I have to ask my boss."

Her boss came over to me and I asked her, "Can you make the price a little less?"

The boss said, "Oh, twenty-five dollars." I agreed, "All right. I will buy it for twenty-five dollars."

The bird started flying all over the store, and with greatest difficulty the saleslady caught it. When she brought it to the register, her boss said, "I am going out now. I will be back in a few minutes."

As soon as her boss left, the saleslady rang up twenty dollars on the register.

I said, "Why, it is twenty-five, not twenty." She just gave me a smile. I continued, "But your boss didn't agree to twenty. She said for twenty-five I can have it."

The saleslady gave it to me for twenty. She was so nice to me. And she was right; the bird sang for three days in the car. For fifteen minutes it would sing one song, then another song. Japanese robins sing different songs with different notes. At least twenty times we heard it sing.

Before this incident, I had gone to another store where the owner was so rude. They had a beautiful parrot. I made him an offer, but he said, "No! It's about a hundred dollars."

I said, "But I'll give you American dollars."

He exclaimed, "What?"

I said, "Perhaps you know that American dollars are worth more."

He said, "What does it mean? So what!"

I said, "Come to America. Then you will see."

These people are all rogues. In so many places they don't give the right exchange rate for the American dollar.