给丝丝办的年货

丝丝，谢谢你过来拜年！也祝你过年好！

给你讲个英文小故事，有时候用英文讲故事就象过年烧鱼加黄酒，可以去点儿腥。

On Chinese New Year's Day I took some friends out to a restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange, but I ignored it. However, when the busboy brought out water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. I then
looked around the room and saw that all the waitpersons had a spoon in
their pocket.

When the waiter came back to check on our order I asked: "Why the spoon?"
"Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting,
experts in efficiency, in order to revamp all our processes. After several
months of statistical analysis, they concluded that customers drop their
spoons 73.84% more often than any other utensil. This represents a drop
frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel
are prepared to deal with that contingency, we can reduce the number of trips
back to the kitchen and save 1.5 man-hours per shift."

As we finished talking, a metallic sound was heard from behind me.
Quickly, the waiter replaced the dropped spoon with the one in his pocket and said:
"I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an
extra trip to get it right now." I was rather impressed. The waiter
continued taking our order and while my guests ordered, I continued to look
around. I then noticed that there was a very thin string hanging out of the
waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same
string hanging from their fly.

My curiosity got the better of me and before he walked off, I asked the
waiter: "Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right
there?" "Oh, certainly!" he answered, lowering his voice. "Not everyone is
as observant as you. That consulting firm I mentioned, also found out that
we can save time in the restroom." "How so?" "See," he continued, "by tying
this string to the tip of ...you know... we can pull it out over the urinal
without touching it and that way eliminate the need to wash the hands,
shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent."

"Okay, that makes sense, but... if the string helps you get it out, how do
you put it back in?" "Well," he whispered, lowering his voice even further,
"I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon."

故事讲完了，希望你喜欢。有意见的话，请告诉我，谢谢！