Cash Back

We did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday and as our custom I load the conveyor and Donna moves to the end and will start bagging if there is no one there. I have the coupons in my pocket (Donna hands them to me as we buy the item the coupon is for) and the loyalty card for the store in my wallet, plus I have the debit card for paying, so I stop opposite the cashier.

When the cashier was done scanning our items and deducting the coupons, I swiped the debit card. At this point, knowing my wallet is empty, Donna says, “Take out a couple extra bucks.” This is unnerving because I am used to requests for specific amounts. I ask Donna what she means by a couple. Her answer was even more unsettling, “Just round up the total.” Our bill was at that point ninety-four dollars and fourteen cents. Crap! She expected me to do math under pressure, the cashier was waiting, the woman behind me had her stuff on the conveyor belt…I couldn’t do it, I just knew I’d subtract wrong, forgetting to carry the one or something, and the bill would come to $101 or $99.

I punted, figured I would just take out ten bucks, that should be easy. I push the other key, hit the 1 and the 0 and hit OK. Your total is $94.24. Damn that’s ten cents! Cancel. Back. Cancel. Panic.

I just know everyone around is staring at the doofus who can’t operate the card console. In my head I imagine the kid at the service desk is making an announcement, “Attention Kroger shoppers. Gather around Register #5 and watch an old guy try to operate the credit card reader. Grab a latte at the Starbucks counter and come on up front because next he’ll be trying to pay using the change from one of those little rubber things with a split in it that even your grandfather is too cool to use anymore.”

Miraculously all my button pushing has brought me back to the “Would you like cash back?” screen without having to swipe the card again. Alright, I want ten bucks, not ten cents. I push the key opposite other and push the one and the zero keys, then the big green Yes button. There. That wasn’t so hard was it?

Apparently it was hard, because the cashier hands me my receipt and my dime change.

And while I’m sure she was trying to be helpful by pointing me to the ATM machine near the service desk, I wasn’t listening to the cashier, I mumbled rudely, “No thanks. I don’t really need it.” I just wanted out of the store.

My very supportive wife waited until we got outside in the parking lot before she started laughing at me…