Change

Yesterday while working a day shift I stopped by the 7-11 for a little snack. I had no idea what I wanted but I preferred something filling, maybe sweet(?), and at least marginally nutritious. I settled on a Payday candy bar – a delicious combination of peanuts, caramel, and chewy nougat. OK I'm not certain about the nougat. Anyway, a regular sized candy bar cost a buck. (ONE DOLLAR for a basic candy bar, you gotta be kidding!) A sign read “Buy two for $1.50.” Fair enough, I thought. I’ll buy two and save one for tomorrow. So I did.

I noted there was a lone cashier behind the counter assisting a garbage man, who was the only person in line ahead of me. I didn’t recognize the cashier, a youngish black fellow with a white shirt and tie and gold colored name tag. He didn’t wear the usual red 7-11 smock. I wasn’t sure if he was a visiting manager or a brand new employee. The garbage man was cashing in lottery tickets and buying more. I wondered to myself: if there is only one person in line, is it really a line? I knew for sure this was a line since it contains two people. But was there a line before I got there. I didn’t think so. Anyway, the clerk was taking a while handling the lottery transaction. Like a few minutes. Meanwhile, an actual line was forming behind me. Finally, the garbage man got his new tickets and moved on. The clerk looked at me and I placed the candy bars on the counter. I said, “How you.” He said, “All right, how you doin’.” I said, “Excellent.” The clerk rang up the candy bars and said, “One sixty.” (I guess there’s tax on Paydays.) OK here’s where it gets complicated. You need to follow the sequence of this. I held in my hand one of those little gummy plastic coin pouches that my grandfather used to use. The one you squeeze lengthwise to open it. Inside were a dozen or so dollar coins I received as change one day from the stamp machine in the post office. Some Sacagaweas and a couple of Susan B. Anthonies. (Never put a twenty in a stamp machine. You’ll get dollar coins back and then you have to strategically spend them to get rid of them. Leave them as tips or something.) So I told the guy, “You’re going to love this,” and I handed him two Susan B’s. He took the coins, stared at them for about a second and a half, then tossed them into the till and shut the drawer. He then looked at the guy behind me as the guy set his chili dog and Big Gulp down on the counter while I kind of side-stepped. Evidently, while brewing coffee, the second clerk had noticed the line growing and had hurried behind the counter to help. Clerk #2, a balding white guy in his sixties whom I recognized as working there for a long time hollered to the line, “Who’s next!” while clerk #1 rang up the guy with the chili dog and Coke. Folks started shuffling toward the second cashier and now I was between the two cash registers. I answered Clerk #2, “I’m not really next but he – and I nodded toward Clerk #1 – owes me my change.” Clerk #2 replied, “Oh, he does?” and he looked over at Clerk #1. I’m standing there in my police outfit, so I’m always being scrutinized anyway, but now I’m the dead center of everyone’s attention. The guy to my left took his chili dog and Big Gulp and backed out the door. Clerk #1 had heard me and so he reached over and picked up a quarter from the counter next to Clerk #1’s register, and handed me the quarter. He then prepared to ring up his next customer. (You’ve done the ciphering, right? Should have been forty cents.) I said to Clerk #1, “I need fifteen more cents.” I could tell I was really interrupting his flow. He turned away from his current customer again, grabbed another quarter, handed it to me, and attended to his next sale. I kind of shouted, “Dude! Now I owe you a dime!” I actually said dude. I mean I was not so much frustrated as incredulous. I chuckled. The guy replied to me, “Don’t worry about it, it’s extra.” I presumed he meant it had been left behind by a previous customer or someone had been overcharged or something like that. So right now I was a cop who just took ten cents from a cashier in front of eight witnesses and on video. I said to Clerk #1 loudly and clearly, “I’ll bring you back a dime later!” and left with my Paydays. Just surreal.

I never did drop off that dime.