Encounters Miami Beach is the place for people watching. For example, it's not unusual to see, as we did, a very, very elderly man, stooped and walking with tiny steps, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, with overcoat and hat, being guided carefully and tenderly across Collins Avenue, by a teenager in Goth dress, with lime-green hair and a guitar slung neck-down on his back, his left hand gently gripping the elderly man's right arm just above the elbow. In that light, I offer the story of the old man: The Old Man I was in the local market to buy lottery tickets. I had to stand in line at the customer service desk. The man in front of me was very old. His back was bent. His face stuck forward. His overcoat was worn. His hat was that Greek-fishing-captain thing, that was fashionable... oh, I don't know how long ago. Before my time. When it was his turn, he put a tangerine on the counter, and asked in a decisive voice for a box of generic-brand band-aids. (For some reason, band-aids are kept behind the service counter in this market.) He asked how much the band-aids were, and the clerk told him. Then he pushed the tangerine forward with a quick jerk, like a man who's lost none of his energy, but his aging and decaying body is no longer capable of grace. The clerk rang it up, and told him the total. "No, that's not right," he said, speaking rapid-fire, "that's not right. How much was this?" He held up the tangerine. Clerk: "Twenty cents." Old Man: "No. The sign said six for a dollar. That's seventeen cents." The clerk rang it up again. Clerk: "It says twenty cents." Old Man: "The sign said six for a dollar. Six for ninety-nine cents. There was a sign." For a minute or two the clerk repeated (not insisted -- just repeated) that the tangerine was twenty cents, and the old man repeated (okay, insisted) variations on his three sentences above. Finally, the clerk said that maybe they were five for ninety-nine cents. Instantly the old man shuffled off towards Produce. The clerk called in Spanish to a bag boy who took off after the old man. A few seconds later the old man was shuffling quickly back, waving his arm and calling, "You were right. Five for ninety-nine. Five for ninety-nine. Twenty cents." All this over three cents. So the clerk rerang the total, and the old man got out a white letter-size envelope, opened it, fumbled inside, and managed to fan out a couple of dollar bills without removing them. "If you can pick out two dollars," he said to the clerk, "I can get the rest in change." This was when I noticed that every one of his fingers, including his thumbs, was completely covered in band-aids from the middle joint to the tip. I don't know what he suffered from that required bandages like that, but because of it he didn't have any dexterity. I bought my lottery tickets while he was collecting his goods, so I happened to leave the store right behind him. We both turned right. He moved fast -- short steps, but fast. As he walked, I heard schreech-schreech, schreech-schreech, schreech-schreech. At the same time, I noticed a panhandler setting up just ahead of us. Panhandlers are the afflication of Miami Beach. This one was just turning his baseball cap up in his lap. Calculating with the instantaneous and dynamic precision of Horatio Hornblower, I realized that I could overtake the old man on his lee just as he passed the panhandler to windward, shielding me from from the panhandler's broadside. Without hesitation, I put this plan into action, and succeeded to a degree that would have made Hornblower proud. And as I came up on the old man's left, I suddenly realized what the schreech-schreech, schreech-schreech was: The old man, scuffing along the sidewalk, was wearing tap shoes. Probably all he could afford at a Goodwill store. That seemed sad. The panhandler said to the old man, "Can you spare me some change?" The old man never looked at the panhandler. He was focused ahead, up Washington Avenue, among the pedestrains. His left hand was clutching the bag with the band-aids and tangerine to his chest. But though he didn't look, he answered. With his right hand he waved absently at the panhandler and said: "I'll get back to you later." I wish I had followed the old man and heard his story. I'll bet it was worth hearing. Miami Beach is full of stories that are worth hearing. Ten-hundred Two-eighteen I had parked the car just north of 16 Street while we shopped. (For some reason, the Miami Beach street names aren't ordinals -- 3rd, 4th, 5th -- but cardinals -- 3 St, 4 St, 5 St.) When I went to get the car, a woman with a young girl spoke to me in an English accent: "Excuse me, is this Drexel Avenue?" Me: "Yes, it is." Her: "Can you tell me where ten-hundred two-eighteen is?" This sent my American brain reeling. Ten-hundred? What the heck was she saying? I was as confused as if she had spoken in Swahili. The words meant nothing to me. For some reason, the first thing that came to mind is that she was asking for 10218, and I thought, man, is she lost -- it's miles from 16 block to 102 block. That couldn't be right: Me: "Do you mean one-zero-two-one-eight? Or one-two-one-eight." Her: "One-two-one-eight." Phew! She was only four blocks away. After I gave her directions, I got in the car thinking about "ten-hundred." And as I thought about it, it wasn't as weird as it seemed. What are ten hundreds? One thousand. And what would we Americans have said? One-thousand two-hundred eighteen. (Or, more likely, twelve-eighteen -- the block number and the house number.) So "ten-hundred two-eighteen" is the same as "one-thousand two-hundred eighteen." The really strange thing is that we Americans do use the "hundred" expression for all the numbers except ten -- eleven-hundred, twelve-hundred, fifteen-hundred, etc. But we never say ten-hundred. Only one-thousand. Is that weird? I used "ten-hundred two-eighteen" on a couple other Americans, and they also immediately thought that I meant 10218. Try it on your friends and see. It's not just me. But the Englishwoman must think I'm daft.