Today was a first – I was taxed for being antisocial.
I guess I should explain. After all, this is a story. It’s my story. And it’s one of those consequential stories, something where someone’s snowball becomes the avalanche down Misanthropy Mountain. Elevation 24,327 feet.
It started at the food court. I recently decided that I am no longer allowed to eat McDonald’s or Burger King. I am, however, allowed to eat Subway and Wendy’s. How did this come to be? Is this logical in any sort of dietary sense? Hell no! But McD’s and BK are just too convenient, and it’s too easy to justify dropping five bucks there. So for the sake of my pennywallet soul, and those handful of pounds I don’t really need, I had to draw the line somewhere.
As such, I did not have my typical Thursday BK lunch. Haven’t had BK in three weeks. Instead, I went with some three dollar breadsticks at the food court, figuring those would hold me over. And like I said before, this starts at the food court.
I don’t know how to phrase this nicely, but the food court is largely populated by mentally-handicapped individuals. And the small percentage that isn’t constitutes the craziest of all crazy townies. Take Crazy Hat Lady for example. She wears some crazy ass hat to work every single day. And I don’t mean crazy in the sense of “oh, how distinct!” I mean crazy as in “WTF kinda store sells that hat?” Today’s hat was a chicken. Like, legs draped over the sides of the hat where ear flaps should be. Giant neck and beak sticking out. Certifiably crazy shit. Previously, she has sported a squid hat and a dinosaur hat. Clearly, a great documentary is waiting for her somewhere.
Anyway, a mentally-handicapped individual was working the register and gave me the wrong change. Shortchanged me five cents. But whatever – five cents, right? Better than explaining it to them and confusing them and having them call the manager to open the register back up and give me the correct change, pissing those waiting in line off in the process. So I just accepted the loss.
Well, a half-hour later, I’m thirsty as hell. Breadsticks, yo. So I walk up to a vending machine and insert one dollar and then start going through the change in my wallet. I’m up to a dollar and two dimes, when I realize all I have left in the wallet is a handful of pennies. Six pennies, to be exact. But this vending machine does not take pennies. And the Coke I so desire to purchase is $1.25. I am, yes, five cents short. Five cents I was previously shortchanged but did not contest.
Figuring I should cut my losses, I press the “change return” button. It does not work. I press it harder, because when you press buttons harder, they naturally make things work better. No such luck. The machine is holding on to $1.20 of my money. I am still a nickle short. Then I remember that the machine has an ePort same-as-cash card swipe function. You can debit your purchase.
So I have two options at this point. Stop one of the many people walking by in the hall and ask for a nickle, or at least trade my six pennies for a nickle. Or debit $0.05 on my card. Option 1 requires talking to strangers and posing an embarrassing request. I don’t want to be that guy. And I really don’t want to talk to strangers. Option 2 requires five cents being subtracted from my bank account. It’s naturally the more appealing option. So I swipe my card and enter the selection.
Nothing.
It registers as a transaction and leaves me with a “HAVE A NICE DAY!” Sure thing, robo-thief. By my calculations to this point, I still have $1.20 in the machine and have now debited $1.25 for a Coke I did not receive. I paid twice for something I never got! And all this time, I’m not even thinking about how much that sucks, how much it sucks to get taxed for not wanting to deal with people – which is essentially what happened here. I’m thinking that the next bastard who walks up to this machine is going to get a friggin’ five cent Coke.
This isn’t Pay It Forward. I’m not Haley Joel Osment. My world doesn’t operate out of this concept of generosity toward strangers. I’ve just been karmically forced into this!
On the way home, I intentionally bump into some jackass on their cell phone not paying attention to where they are going. It’s much more fun being antisocial.
