Friday, September 22, 2023

The Unbearable Rightness Of Seeing

No good deed goes unpunished. Just ask Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Wait! You don't have to ask. Because she is eager to tell you about it, whether you are interested or not.

On my Thursday errand day, I went into the Sis-Town Casey's to pay for T-Hoe's gas, and buy some scratchers. I have given up on cashing in winners there, because they seem to have such state of confusion trying to accept those tickets as partial payment. It's easier to cash in winners at the Gas Station Chicken Store, then take the remaining cash to apply to my purchase at the Sis-Town Casey's. 

Anyhoo... two people were ahead of me. The older man who often waits on me was the only one at the counter. He left one dude putting in his card information, and stepped to the other register to ring up another guy. Much to my dismay, a woman I'd never seen there before came out, and said she'd wait on me at the register where the card-guy left.

I told her how much gas I wanted on Pump 6, and then told her the scratchers I wanted. She tore them out of the case, and went to ring them up by scanning them with the little lottery-scanner thingamabob. Of course it beeped too many times, and she had to void some and then resume. 

Long story not much shorter... she told me the total.

"I think you might have missed a $5 ticket. That's $5 less than I expected my total to be."

"Well, I though you asked for three tickets."

"Three of the crosswords. And then that other $5. See?"

I showed her my tickets, as the older man stepped over to help. He voided the whole transaction. Rang up my gas again. Then scanned the tickets. BINGO! It came to the total I had planned on. Then he stepped away. The gal apologized.

"No problem. I don't want to cheat anybody. It's fine."

She told me to have a nice day, and I returned the wish to her. Then I headed out to pump my gas, hoping my pre-payment hadn't expired. I put the nozzle in T-Hoe's orifice, then took my tickets to put on the console while the gas was pumping.

The dang nozzle kept shutting off, so instead of leaving it with the automatic lever on to pump, I had to stand by it and squeeze the handle. NOTE TO SELF: Don't use Pump 6 again, even if your favorites are taken.

The pump shuts off when it gets to the pre-paid amount. So I didn't keep turning to look at the display. When it clicked off, I took the nozzle out, and returned it to the holder. Imagine my surprise when I saw the display showing that I had pumped an EXTRA 4 CENTS of gas!!!

Sweet Gummi Mary! I was NOT walking back inside to pay that extra 4 cents! After all, I had just corrected their own $5 error when I saw that they had charged me too little. Nobody came out to demand that extra 4 cents while I sat in T-Hoe and wrote the initials of the Sis-Town Casey's on the back of my tickets.

The way I see it, they can eat that 4 cents. Considering I had saved them $4.96 by correcting their error.

4 comments:

River said...

I wouldn't be at all worried about four extra cents of gas, but I would be sure to not use that particular pump again.

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
Pump 4 is my favorite, directly across from the sidewalk ramp, so I don't have to step up or down. If it's busy, I'll use 3 or 5, but they were also taken this day. I think the 4-cent error had to be in how my pre-pay was punched into the pump system. Because it's not supposed to let you run over what you've paid. Or maybe someone before me at Pump 6 had left 4 cents on the pump, though I think it gets re-set with a pre-payment. At least the police didn't come after me with sirens screaming!

Kathy's Klothesline said...

It was not intentional, it was equipment failure! Back in the day when I used to measure yardage in the fabric stores and would come to the end of the bolt and cutting would leave just a few inches, I would just leave it and give it to the customer. Nothing can be done with inches of fabric when it comes to the store getting anything for it and it garners good will. Old ladies called that a good yard. I bought fabric for something not long ago and it took them forever to measure out the yardage and there were TWO inches that would be left on the bolt. She cut it off and tossed it in the trash! Rather than leave it at the end of my yardage. You me, I asked how and she said that was how she was trained! They would rather throw it away than, as she said, give everybody 38" in a yard. Policies have changed and I suppose she did not anyone feeling special on her watch!

Hillbilly Mom said...

Kathy,
That is just spiteful, throwing away a strip of fabric rather than give it to somebody to use! When I worked at a Casey's, we would even put the throw-away chicken and donuts in a clean trash bag, and call one of the off-duty employees to say what time we were setting them out ON TOP of the dumpster. No need for food to be good enough to sell one minute, and then garbage the next.