Catching Ducks

At work yesterday, a teenaged girl came up to me, held up two items, and asked how much they would cost. I asked her if she knew how much each one was (they weren't individually labelled), and she said she thought they were $2 each. I checked to be sure she was right (she was), and then said, "Well, they'd be $4, plus tax." She still looked at me expectantly, so I said, "Tax is about 10%, so they should be $4.40."

I thought it was a little peculiar, but since I was in my 20's before I really had a handle on percentages (despite being very good at math) and since I didn't know the tax rate until I started working retail, I let it go.

A couple of minutes later she came up to me, held out two quarters and said, "Would four dollars plus these be enough?"

She didn't seem mentally disabled in any way, but I'm hoping she was, because otherwise....that's just really, really sad.