No experience or circumstance can be futile or meaningless if we can learn something from it.

I really and truly believe that. So I try and extract some kind of lesson from every interaction, every engagement and every situation. Some experiences offer new learning and some just help to reinforce things I know long time.

For example, I just learned (or rediscovered) that all kind of people read this column. Yeah man; and that's very reassuring. I got a very long e-mail last week from a young lady in Portland. She's in upper sixth form at that high school in Port Antonio that produces some of our most brilliant minds, and she wrote me a 700 word letter.

Yes, I counted the words! She wrote to share a dramatic and unpleasant experience she had with a security guard at a certain store in her town, and she wanted to get my comments on her experience.

Hear how her story go: she was hurrying home from school to work on her SBA and stopped to buy a file jacket and some cold and flu tablets.

Wrapped in a file jacket

She got the file jacket at one place but didn't get the tablets. She checked another shop, still didn't get the tablets but got into a small altercation with the 'guardie'.

He saw her leaving with the file jacket, and since that store also sells file jackets and she didn't have a receipt, he concluded that she probably stole it.

According to her account, people started looking at her funny, and she had to speak up very strongly in her own defence. Like a typical Jamaican, she naturally felt the urge to 'get on bad' but restrained herself out of respect for her uniform.

The store has security cameras, and she made the excellent point that the zealous gateman could have consulted the footage to verify that she came into the store with her file jacket, instead of trying to publicly humiliate her.

He finally accepted her explanation only when she requested that he accompany her to the other store to confirm that the item was bought there. He apparently couldn't bother with the extra work, plus she was also expecting an apology and he was too big for that.

Demand a receipt

Well, I empathise with the 'little' miss (yeah, according to her own description she's kinda small for a six former). But I want to point her to one small lesson that can be had from her experience: Always demand a receipt! Trust me, when all is said and done, it is your only legitimate proof of purchase. And if anything goes wrong, it's your first route to getting redress. Yes shortie, do like Uncle Blakka and try learning from everything! Yu know say I even learn things from watching cloying reality TV shows? Fi real.

For example, here are four things I learn from watching American Idol:

1.Some people in this world, especially in the USA, will do absolutely anything including making a complete jackass of themselves, just for a few minutes of public attention.

2. When an American thinks he or she has talent, no amount of expertise can convince them otherwise. They've mastered the art of being 'militantly ignorant'.

3. No matter how people bad, whether they are ridiculously stupid or wantonly wicked there is always someone in their corner telling them how wonderful they are, and how the rest of the world just spiteful, foolish or blind for not seeing how good they are.

4. Foreign people will cry for any and everything. Yes hyah, me learn dat!

But, tell me what you learn:

box-mi-back@hotmail.com