This morning I photographed my latest batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips. I was very efficient and done by 11:30, so I decided to reward myself by taking Scully on a drive out to the beach, so I could get some nice pies at my favourite pie shop, and then take Scully for a bit of a walk by the beach.
I bought a Thai vegetable pie, a satay chicken pie, and a vanilla slice (the Aussie version of the classic French mille-feuille) for dessert. We sat and ate in a shady spot on the grass right by the beach, looking out at the Pacific Ocean. But as we walked out there from the pie shop, we passed a new gelato shop that has sprung since the last time I was here. I like gelato, so I wanted to try some. So, on the way back after letting Scully run around a bit on a nearby playing field, we popped into the gelato shop.
It was being operated by two girls, about 12 years old, with no adults in sight. It was a small place and there was no door to a back area where anyone else might have been lurking, so I can only assume the girls had been left to run the place completely alone. I don’t know about other countries, but this is not entirely unusual here—to go into some sort of shop and be served by a child—especially given the fact that we’re currently in summer school holidays.
I’d like to report that the gelato was excellent, but in fact it was decidedly average. Not bad, but not great. At least I tried it, and gave the girls some business. Oh, they were very generous with the serving size, I must say – I got way more than I expected.
Back home tonight I started the new week of ethics classes with a new topic: Buying and Selling part 3. This one is mostly about supermarket tactics to get shoppers to buy more stuff, and opportunistic pricing. I had a couple of new students in the three classes tonight, and they seem good. I hope they enjoyed the class and return next week.
New content today:
In British Columbia minors can only work if they’re supervised by an adult and if they’re 12 or 13 they could only work for a family owned business (plus some other restrictions which wouldn’t apply in this case).