Another Day in Trustmart--

So you go to your favorite store again, the one that still won't give you the discount card everyone else has. You're a regular customer, and the treatment you receive at the cashier has you doubting whether or not you'll come back. Each time you ask for the discount card, the cashier either borrows one from another customer for you, or tells you that you really don't need one.

Today's visit is going fairly well, the store isn't as full as it usually is, and the megaphones are blissfully quiet. After gathering your things, you make your way over to find a checkout line. Picking the shortest one, you lay your basket on the counter and wait for the inevitable question regarding the discount card. Do you have one? Nope. Just as you are about to ask where to get one, a petite woman appears and offers to help. She speaks English, and upon finding out you don't have the card, proceeds to poll everyone in line for one. You thank her for finding a willing customer, and then explain to her that you would like to obtain the card for yourself. Your new friend soon understands the problem, and agrees to take you to get the card. This is turning out to be a good day after all.

You pay for your goods and follow your new friend out the door and around the corner to a teller window built into the side of the building. In true Chinese fashion, you cut to the front of the crowd and watch as your friend issues a list of demands to the woman behind the glass window. The woman looks you over, and reluctantly agrees to give you an application form.

You and your new friend step aside and start filling out the form. Name? Check. Gender? Check. 身份证? Nope.

"What? You don't have a 身份证, the national ID card?" Your friend asks.

"Well, I'm not Chinese. Will my student ID work?"

"No."

"Oh. Well all I have is two student ID cards and a driver's license from the States. Won't anything else do?" Your friend turns back to the window and argues with the woman for several more minutes. Finally she announces that your passport will work as a suitable form of identification. Do you have it with you? You answer honestly that no, you don't have it with you. Your friend's look of disappointment at that response is almost more than you can bear. You look at her again, and make an offer hoping it'll work.

"I don't have my passport with me, but I know the number..." A few more tense negotiations later, the woman agrees to let you write down your passport number. Seizing the opportunity, you snatch the application from your friend's hands and proceed to start the acting bit of this little show.

"Hmm, what is my passport number again? Oh yeah... DVELL14766598-023. I think that's it. Yeah, that's it." In reality, you have no idea what this number is. You pass the application back as your friend orders you to get your student ID out again. The ID card is in a flip case that fits neatly inside your wallet. As you pull it out, it flips open to reveal the first page and these words: "Passport number" followed by your non-fraudulent passport number. You start to worry that perhaps this little charade won't be so successful after all. Will this woman compare the actual passport number to the one you put down on the application form? Does it really matter?

The woman takes the closed ID card and sets it on the desk beside her. "Could you repeat that number?" She asks you, "I can't read it."

"Uh... Er... Um..., it's DEV787-- Can you hand that to me? I'll just write it down for you." She passes the application form back to you and you finish scrawling in the numbers.

"And your phone number?" This time you give her a real number, but as you watch, she writes it down wrong. Oh well, one fake number for another. After ten minutes of inputting your falsified information, you hold in your hand a brand new discount card, and it feels like gold.