Do you ever find yourself faced with a quandary over small change?
Picture being at a shop counter. You’re purchasing a 99p item, having just handed over a pound coin. The shopkeeper starts faffing around for your change. Although this fumble (like so many of my others) only lasts seconds, the time delay in this furrowing seems endless.
Maybe he’s having trouble opening the till? Or he’s going to punishing lengths to burrow round for the right coin? It doesn’t matter what the hold up is caused by. Automatically you can’t help feeling you’re putting the poor chap to great pains for the sake of a penny. Worse still, other customers in the queue stand behind you, impatiently waiting to be served. Your continued presence at the counter, anticipating this solitary coin, is going to portray you as incredibly mean to this audience. Especially when they spot you’ve been holding them all up over a penny. You are trapped, conscious of the venomous glares erupting behind you.
Or are you? Couldn’t you just walk off? I suppose you could. But what if the shop-keeper calls you back?
“Here’s your change sir.” He hollers across the aisles. And what are your options now?
You can turn around and trudge shamefully back to the counter, barging in front of a queue of irritated customers just to reclaim a tiny monetary piece of shrapnel. But you’d be damning your popularity further, wasting even more of their time than you would have done originally if you’d have just stayed at the counter in the first place.
Or you could return the holler and insist that the gentleman ‘keep the change’ for his kindly concern. This isn’t so bad for monetary value of ten pence or over, but telling him to keep a penny just makes you look arrogant. What is the poor man expected to say in response?
“Oh sir, is this for me? Really? You show such generosity to my shop, that this transcends a mere tip – oh what am I saying? - Tip?? - For you are surely now classed a benefactor! Oh but sir, how we both know I cannot keep this coin. It doesn’t seem right. It is too much. Please, allow me spend my day off dividing it with a saw, so I may share the wealth for the fortune of mankind. I must place at least half in this tin which I keep on the front counter to collect for Cancer Research. Oh thank you kind sir, you will be the savior of so many lives with your donation.”
This response would be fairly unlikely. In fact, if I were him, I’d pelt the measily coin straight back at your head, you condescending, tight-arsed little squirrel.
You make me sick.
Of course, you could opt to simply be dismissive the whole ordeal. When he calls you’d pretend not to hear and just leg it out of the shop. But this looks plain weird. Chances are you’ll be exuding the impression of guilt and a petty shop theft. You won’t get to the end of the street before you’ve been a victim of police brutality.
As you can see, each option is as unappealing as the next. My advice? Stay indoors at all costs. Why do you think God invented internet shopping?
Oh yeah, that’s right – to terrify us with the hanging paranoia of internet banking fraud.
No comments:
Post a Comment