It's A Small Town, After All

So a while ago, I complained to the Febreze people (I think technically Proctor and Gamble) or maybe I just commented to them that it sucks that their sprayer thingie on the bottles always leaks and drips and runs down your hand and send huge droplets of Febreze onto whatever you're spraying. Seems like they could fix that pretty easily. They sent me two coupons: Free Febreze, Any Size, Any Type.

Today, I took my two coupons in to the teeny-tiny local grocery. I purchased two huge refill size Febrezes, they're free, might as well. Now, these coupons don't look like a standard colorful, Sunday-newspaper-type coupon. They were the standard manufacturer's coupon, complete with watermark and hologram-type things. So, I hand the checkout girl my coupons and tell her they're for the Febreze.

**Rest assured, it will take you less time to read this that it took for me to get out of that damn grocery.**

She looks at them. For a long time. She scans one, and the register asks her to input the amount. It is painfully obvious what she needs to do here. The register display says: "Enter coupon amount." She calls someone up to the register.

Someone else comes up, looks at the coupons. Reads them. Notices the "one coupon per purchase" rule. I say, "so take one Febreze off, I'll do a separate purchase." No problem, right? They are acting put out. A line is forming behind me. They scan the coupon again, and after discussing it, they enter the price: 7.99. Then they discuss whether to take the 2nd Febreze off. Then they finally take it off. I pay my bill. And only now does it get interesting.

She scans the Febreze bottle that she previously removed from my cart. And she stands there. And the other woman stands there. AS IF they have never before seen this Free Febreze coupon that just happens, miracle of miracles, to be EXACTLY THE SAME as the last coupon. (gasp!) I say, helpfully, "just scan it in like you did the last one."

The 2nd woman says, "She doesn't want to mess anything up." I say, "...mess anything up? It's a COUPON, just scan it like the last one." (I used to work in a grocery store, I know these little tricks) They call ANOTHER PERSON to come up and help them. I kid you not. I look behind me at the next person in line, shrug and mouth the words, "It's just a coupon??" And she laughs. H-Bomb, on the other hand, is hungry and tired after preschool and is getting antsy. He wants to go. I say, "Honey, I'm sorry this is taking SO long. We'll be able to go soon."

The 3rd person comes up. Luckily I recognize her as a Woman with a Brain. The other two ask her what to do. She says, "Just scan it and see what happens." Can we get a group "DUH-HUH" up in he-yah???

Everyone practically holds their breath (except for me and the brainiac) as she scans the coupon. Again, the register asks, "Enter coupon amount." She looks at her two co-workers and asks, "7.99?" Um, yeah, that's the price. The brainiac says, "she will pay the tax." And the total comes to $0.52.

And I should have just put it on my credit card, I really should have. Or I should have brought my purse in. The same way I should have realized that the coupon said "one coupon per purchase" before I tried to use the two coupons for two products at the same time. But, I said, "I'll go get the 52 cents out of the car." And the checkout girl looked questioningly at the braniac. And the brainiac said, "just close it out and take the money when she comes back." I start to run out. The second clerk says, "what about your Febreze?" I tell her I'll grab it when I come back.

Now, not only do I have frozen groceries that I need to get home, I have two boys that are anxious and hungry and don't understand why we have to go back in the store and why they can't just have an animal cracker in the jeep. THANK GOD I had a freakin' dollar in my purse. I normally don't.

I run back, pushing my cart with the boys in. I wait for another transaction with that clerk, and then hand her my dollar. She looks at it. Smoothes it out. Puts it down. Pulls out her cell phone. Starts...typing? Even the clerk next to her says, "Hey, what are you doing?" She doesn't respond, but then starts to open the cash drawer. "I say, OH--Calculator." The other clerk laughs and says, "Yeah, we don't have calculators here. Ha-ha! Did you think she was texting??" "I didn't know..."

Now, here is an aside. I personally believe if you are in ANY kind of position at all where you have to deal with money, whether you work in a bank or a store or a strip club, you should HAVE TO KNOW how to make change.

For this transaction, there are myriad ways to calculate, in your head or even on your fingers, the difference between $1.00 and $0.52. I assume most of you reading this can think of three different ways in your head (and indeed probably saw where this was going about four paragraphs ago) so I won't bore you. She used her little cell phone calculator, and determined that she had to give me 48 cents back. Thank goodness she was able to count out those 48 cents without calling for backup.

After all this, I said Thank You. And she ignored me. So I said it louder, more sing-songy, very politely, again, "THANK YOU." And she ignored me. She turned away from me, toward the other clerk, and said, "I am hungry."

Girl, it ain't my fault they hired you for a job you don't know how to do.