“That’ll be $3.46,” the girl behind the counter said.
I pulled out a ten and then said, “Wait, I’ve got some change.”
I looked at the coins in my hand: just a bunch of quarters and pennies.
“Well, at least here’s the penny,” I said, and handed her $10.01.
She didn’t flinch, which was a good sign. She just took the money and pushed some buttons on the cash register, and the cash drawer popped open.
There was some fiddling with bills. She got a five and some ones and then put some ones back and then put them all back and got out a small pad of paper and started scribbling. Then she mumbled something as she pulled out some coins.
Clearly, she was trying to figure out how to make change for my $10.01.
I swear I didn’t think it’d be hard. You don’t have to do math these days to run a register. Heck, you don’t even enter numbers, you just push little buttons for the burgers and the fries and the drinks. I figured the machine would tell her what to do. But the machine evidently didn’t tell her what to do, and her scribbling had evidently been an attempt at subtraction: 10.01 – 3.46.
Fortunately, there was no line behind me.
“Hey, how do I do this?” she asked the guy at the register next to her. She told him what I had done, and he stared in blank silence looking at her cash drawer.
I leaned forward.
“How much was my bill?” I asked.
She looked up.
“My bill was $3.46. I gave you $10.01. The penny makes my bill $3.45. So just give my change for $3.45 from $10.”
It didn’t help.
“$6.55,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s it,” the guy next to her said, nodding his head and quickly returning to his register.
She gave me $6.55, and I stepped back and eagerly waited for my burger and fries.