Oh sure, it sounds logical. After all, the primary task of a cashier is to take money and return correct change. Clearly my logical way of thinking has a fatal flaw – Logic.

On my lunch break, I stopped at the convenience store to make a quick purchase.

The first clue that something was wrong came when the cashier first spoke to me. I don’t know what language it was, but it wasn’t American English. It wasn’t English English. It wasn’t even that jibberish that Australians try to pass off as English.

It sounded something like, “Buzzle gorben fruzen koala.”

On second thought, maybe she was Australian.

The purchase total was $8.63, so naturally she said, “ankle wallaby dunken.” In her native tongue that must mean, “eight dollars and sixty three cents.” I reached forth and handed her a $20.

Where ever her native country or planet is, they must not be used to handling American currency. She looked at me like I had handed her a dry cleaning receipt, rather than cash.

Thanks to modern technology, cashiers don’t even need to calculate the difference between the amount tendered, and the amount required. The machine says right there that the change is $11.37.

Easy enough. A $10, a $1, a quarter, a dime, and two pennies. Right?

Not for our planet hopping convenience store clerk.

She seemed confused about what to give me. Her hand bounced from one part of the till to the next, never selecting a cash amount. Finally she pulled up two fives and a one. Good enough. 37 cents to go.

Still, utterly confused about what to do, she reaches for dimes, and eventually grabs a quarter instead. Then what? Nickles – No pennies. Dime?

I look in my hand: A quarter. a nickel, a penny. “Uh, that’s 31 cents. It should be 37,” I tell her. I brace myself for the convulsions that I’m positive she’s about to break into. She reaches towards the pennies.

“Crap,” I think, “Looks like I’ll be heading home with a burlap sack full of pennies.” She hands me a dime. I give back the nickel and tell her, “one more penny.” The grand mal seizure appears to be only nanoseconds away when I finally get the penny and have my correct $11.37 in hand.

I’m not sure what the qualifications required for “convenience store clerk” are, but they do not seem to include rudimentary grasp of the English language…

Or money counting abilities.

Humor-Blogs.com short-changes me all the time.

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Category: Humor Tags: Basic Cashier Skill, Humor, Skills Cashiers Should Have