This morning on my way in to work, I decided to pick up some fast food for breakfast. I made a quick right into the Burger King parking lot and proceeded to the drive through. After placing my order I followed the attendants instructions and pulled up to the second window to pay and get my greasy morning sustenance. The entire breakfast set me back $3.24, so I gave the pimple-faced order-taker a ten dollar bill. In return he gave me $6.26. Maybe you did not get that….he gave me $6.26 back in change. OK, so your quick math skills tell you that I was supposed to get back $6.76, meaning I was shorted a whopping (heh…whopper…whopping…no pun intended) ¢50. So you say, ¢50 big freakin deal right? It just astonishes me that with the advances of modern technology, people can still make such mistakes. It isn’t like he had to do any arithmetic in his head. The blasted machine tells you exactly how much change to give customers. Typically, they ring up the sale, enter the amount of cash you gave them and viola; the amount of change to give you appears magically on the screen. I wondered if he had just made a simple error, with the pressure of the mad breakfast rush and that long line of two vehicles behind me, perhaps he was a bit flustered. Or was this further proof of our rapidly declining public education system. As far as I know, and correct me if I am wrong, there has never been a ¢75 coin in our nations history. Luckily his manager was there to correct the mistake. I am afraid that if he had to mentally recalculate my correct change, his pock marked head might have exploded.
OK, this is the part where I show my thirty-one years of age by breaking out the phrase, Back in my day we used to have to…
But seriously, maybe kids are relying too much on calculators these days instead of acutally mastering simple addition and subtraction. Obviously, I am poking a bit of fun at the incident, but it struck me as a little sad. Burger King’s slogan is Have it your way,
but if your way is attendants that can add and subtract….I think you may be simply out of luck.