The Curmudgeon learns a lesson or By now, I should know better

So I'm in my boutique make-up store, having made a couple of purchases which I don't need immediately, but I can see the bottom of the bottle, so to speak. Therefore, it's time to buy while I'm there since said boutique is in Dallas and I am not.

The clerk is new and anxious to please and we've chatted amicably. The bill comes to just under $20 since I've been able to cash out my frequent shopper card for $10 off. I hand her a fifty, and as I'm doing so, a little voice is whispering in my ear: "Ask if she can make change for that." Despite being near closing time, most people pull out a card and she might not have change for that, but I don't ask, and thereby hangs the lesson.

She doesn't look at the bill. She plops it atop the twenties and counts out my coinage as she shuts the register drawer.

"I gave you a fifty."

She is flummoxed and looks at her supervisor (store manager?) to open the register. The store manager shoots us both daggers with her eyes. All of a sudden I'm the customer out to bilk the store for $30 and her new clerk is the annoying victim. But she has to open the register and she does so with much punching and distrust.

Oh, my. Look atop the twenties. There's a fifty. Hmmm... I don't say anything. The manager grabs the bill, puts it where it should have been put in the first place, the secret fifty/hundred slot, and smiles weakly as I get my $30.

Next time I'm asking if they have change for that.

The curmudgeon taps her foot again

So I have a question, just a question mind you, of a salesclerk in a store. This store sells wine and kitchen gizmos and exotic jewelry and furniture from around the world. Nothing's real expensive, but there's not a price displayed on a package of cookies. They come in three flavors, mango, strawberry, and apricot, and they look like they'd be just right for the bridge group. But I have my financial limits on what I'm willing to pay for 12 cookies from Portugal, so I take the package to the front counter.

Which is where our story really begins. The young woman in front of me is having a heck of a time getting her credit/debit card to go through. The young male clerk is little help. He keeps pushing buttons on the register which will lock up, then not. The woman explains that there's lots of money in that account. Lots. They just sold property. Oh, maybe it's the wrong card. She tries another. Same song, second verse.

Then our clerk lets go the truth: the machines were down the evening before. I'm thinking it's not that someone has drained the accounts, but that maybe the machine isn't back up and no one in the invisible back office has told the clerk. Finally, she pays cash, about $20, and vows to go check at the bank. I bet the teller got an earful.

I find out my cookies are reasonably priced, the register is working for that bit of info, and I go to load up.

Reappear at the same register, same clerk, different shopper, this one about my age, same problem. By this time, I'm wondering 1) where management is and 2) why this guy isn't still stocking, because customer service of the-credit-card-machine-isn't-working-ma'am type, is severely lacking. The amount in question this time is a bit over $5. She gives up and writes a check.

Now, if the credit card machine isn't working right, then the instant-verify your check isn't working either. Finally someone shows up to take the line of customers to another register. Trust me, I paid cash.

Management said she was sorry for the wait. That's when I unloaded: told her I'd waited twice. That the clerk was on his own. Why hadn't someone come to help him sooner?

As I'm leaving the cashless woman with the still spinning check standing at the counter, management is leaning over asking what's wrong.

Sheesh! And she even tried to get me on their mailing list!

The stop watch

Or, curmudgeon strikes again.

I have a treadmill, a lightweight thing which takes up as little space as it can while still being functional. It's over a year old and so has started misbehaving. (There may not be an app for that, but there's bound to be a time-limit on a chip.) Its misbehavior centers on not showing me how far I've treaded once we get into the 1.5 miles range. Nor will it easily let me see my time. It's stuck on some number at the bottom which I think is supposed to be my heartbeat except I'm not even touching the monitor. Too many gizmos on this lightweight machine.

But that's not the problem. I thought if I bought a stop watch and affixed it with Velcro to the machine, then I could estimate when to speed up (from 4.0 to 4.7 mph over the course of exercise) and be done with it. I would win; the treadmill would not.

Well, the treadmill may not be winning, but the stop watch has a good chance.

All I wanted was a stop watch. That's all it had to do: zero out, click on, give me a readout in minutes and seconds, click off, zero out. Simple really.

Or not. I took myself to Walmart where I found two, one in the watch department, one in the sports. They were both $10. The sports department one seemed to be a simpler operation and therefore more suitable until I took it up to the watch department and found that the latter's choice had a back light button.

My exercise room is dark except for the light from the TV and the stubborn treadmill display. I needed the backlight, which determined my choice.

The instructions never said a word--not one--about how to use the stop watch. Instead it was all about pushing button S3 so many times to bring up the date and button S2 to set it. And it didn't work. Those were not the instructions for the stop watch I had bought! Plus, I didn't want the date! Or the day of the week, or the time. I wanted a stop watch!

Then, through a miracle (or just pushing enough buttons before I took the thing back and held out for a sports equipment store), I managed to push the right combination and there appeared--zeroes! A stop watch at last. I pushed it on, watched the numbers whiz by. Off. Reset. Did it again. Gingerly affixed it to the treadmill and left it in that mode. I don't think I would ever find it again and woe be to the person who pushes S3 unawares.

Punching in

Do you ever feel like you spend your life looking at a screen and punching (hopefully) appropriate buttons?

It struck me as I filled my car with gas at the local big box (3 cents off per gallon with a pre-paid-let-us-have-the-float-on-your-money card) and looked around. Just as I had done, the guy opposite me was staring at the screen, index finger poised.

Insert card.
Remove card.
Do you want to save your engine by purchasing an additive for an extra $1.99? Yes/no.
You have $X remaining.
Lift the nozzle.
Select the grade.
Fill.

And, finally, Do you want a receipt? Yes/no.

Punch, punch, punch.

And it's the same story at ATMs, self-checkout, credit/debit card readers at the cash register, copy machines, iPods, iPhones, restaurant order computers, fast food order lines... whew! Woe be to you if you touch the wrong square and have to start over! If you even can.

Curmudgeon that I am, I don't think this is a trend which will reverse itself any time soon. It is only going to get worse, and I am going to have to learn to live with it. And be very careful what I punch.

The curmudgeon strikes again

How dare I pay with cash?

I felt like the hapless customer in the debit/charge? commercial where everything is going along at a great fast-food pace and then he pulls out cash. Cash? No one deals with cash.

Would that I had learned my lesson last July when I bothered to spend leftover traveler's checks. On our trip to Houston, I had varying degrees of luck and blogged about them here, determining that I was indeed an old curmudgeon if I expected the debit card generation to recognize them as legal tender.

Some of us don't learn our lessons--or at least not quickly--but I thought I was safe with a fifty dollar bill.

Having made a DVD purchase at Best Buy, I pulled a fifty from my wallet and handed it over. The sweet young thing at the register had seen them before because she reached for the magic test-it-to-be-counterfeit pen and marked it. It passed the test. The test it didn't pass was the one with the little strip running through it. She held it to the light, she crinkled it, she sighed and looked at me.

Could I help it if it wasn't this year's model? It was an old fifty, one I'd received from cashing a check at the bank earlier in the week. And then, in a crowded store, two days before Christmas, things ground to a halt at my register.

She called the girl at the next desk. She explained the situation. I tapped my foot and waited for the manager to appear. Surely someone had seen a fifty which was older than themselves. That didn't become necessary because the second clerk, whether she had actually seen one or not, declared it to be good. Fine, my clerk answered, if it was fake, it wasn't her fault.

Things quietly resumed and, glare or no, I gathered my packages, smiled, and wished for a little more world-wisdom in the retail world.