Was All This Really Necessary?

As tired and emotionally drained as I was Friday afternoon after class, I had to make myself go to the mall and pick up a birthday gift, a baby shower gift and wrapping paper. I was in Kerr Drug in U-Mall with just over $6.00 in merchandise and assumed it would be a breeze checking out. The clerk asked credit or debit, I said debit. When it was time to type in my PIN number (and I realize I didn't just need to write 'number' because now I've just referred to typing in my 'personal identification number number', but who cares) I had to do it with a stylus thing-y rather than just push the buttons. Those type machines can be too damn finicky and I've found myself many a time pushing my numbers over and over needlessly as in If I just try it one more time a LITTLE HARDER, maybe it will work. This was one of those times.

Four-digit PIN number (I did it again) bump, bump, bump, bump. Easy right? But the machine wouldn't process anything I pushed. So I tried harder, slower, faster, softer, then harder again. Finally, the PIN number (and a third time) went through. It wanted to know how much cash I wanted back. None, $10, $20, or $25. I pushed 'none.' Nothing. So I pushed 'none' harder, then slower, then faster, then softer, then harder again. The clerk told me that a woman earlier that day had to take the stylus in both hands and jam it down really hard to get it to take. Was she serious? Two hands? I tried it. I wrapped both of my hands around the skinny little shit, I mean stick, looked around self consciously and started jabbing 'none.' I then jabbed $10, $20, and $25. It didn't matter, I'd take any of those amounts of cash, just to get the hell out of there. The women behind me were getting impatient too. There were three of them together, waiting to buy cigarettes and the one right behind me finally opened her tooth-missing mouth and said, "Just give her her stuff for free so we can get on with it." I think the clerk would have agreed to that course of action if she had known a way to cancel the sale. We couldn't re-start, I just had to keep trying all of the pesky cash back options. And I was stabbing. It was a joke!! I turned to the ladies behind me with a grin and asked them if any of them would like to give it a try, if they had anyone they'd like to pretend they're stabbing as they're helping me finish my transaction. They laughed and the woman with the missing teeth took ahold of the stylus and asked me how much money I wanted back. I told her it did NOT matter, just any of those options. PLEASE! She gently tapped $25 and on the first try it took and began to process. Of course it did.

We all cheered! She told the clerk that she should get her goods for free. I thought the waiting was over, until I looked down at the smug machine asking fake politely, "Is this amount correct? Press 'yes' or 'no.' OMG, the HORROR! Miss Missing Teeth took the stylus again and tried her gentle magic on 'yes' but did it work? 'NO!' She tried tapping 'yes' harder, then faster, then slower, then gentler, then turned the machine over and said, "How bout we try unplugging the pen and plugging it back again?" Yes, how bout we. She did it and it worked!! More cheering and louder cheering because the line was three customers deeper.

I asked to get my $25 in 'change' with a twenty and five ones. I asked Ms. Teeth how much her cigarettes were, $3? $5? "Actually," she said, "they're only .99" As I put my money back into my purse, I smiled, rolled my eyes, said thank you and handed her a dollar.