I bought a sub sandwich Wednesday at the campus sub shop. It came to $7.15. I handed the college girl at the register a $10 bill, then dug through my wallet for some change. But she cashed out the sale before I came up with the 15 cents, so when I held out the change she looked surprised and embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I already finished the sale.”
“But I have the exact change, you just have to give me three dollars back.”
“I can’t do that. I already typed in $10 and finished the sale.”
“Oh, so you can’t do the math.”
“It’s just that if you want to give me $10.15, I’d have to void the sale and re-do it.”
“But, I have exact change. Just do the math, I get $3 back. It works out exactly the same.”
“I’m sorry, though. I already finished the sale. And, it’s just a hassle to re-do it to figure out the new change.”
“But it’s just the exact change. If you give me three dollars, it works out exactly the same. It’s just a bit of math.”
“I’m sorry, though. It’s already done.” And, she finally added sheepishly, “And, math isn’t my best subject.”
Now, math isn’t my favorite subject either. But, it’s not like I gave her something weird, like $12.40 so I could get a $5 bill and a quarter back. It was just $10.15, even I can quickly make the change for that.
So I laughed and said to forget about it, and I took the $2.85 the cash register told her to give me.
Janie's Place 