If Only He’d Spend That Much Effort Parenting His Kids
We had a dad who let his two young children run loose in our comic store. They knocked over a display, which destroyed a glass display case and several high-priced figurines. Our boss ended up suing the dad, and he was ordered to pay over $2,000 in damages.
It was the last day for the parent to pay the damages before he would be in trouble with the courts, and I saw his car drive up to the front of the store. The back was dragging very low, and I watched as he got out, opened the trunk, and struggled to grab two backpacks and bring them inside. He set them by the front counter, and without another word, he went back several times, bringing more and more of these backpacks in.
Once he was done, he leaned on the counter with a sweaty, red face.
Dad: “Receipt.”
Me: “For?”
Dad: “The damages. There’s your money.”
Grinning like an idiot, he opened one of the bags onto the floor. It was full to the brim of nothing but change — quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.
Me: “You… just dragged in thousands of dollars in change?”
Dad: “It’s legal tender. You have to take it. Get me my receipt now, little girl.”
Me: “Okay. But I am not taking it like that. You need to bring it to the back counter. Then, I need to confirm that it is all there.”
Dad: “But—”
Me: “But nothing. I am going to count it. Every. Single. Cent. And then, because there is so much there, I am going to count it back to you. Then, you are going to roll it up into coin stacks so I can take it to the bank. Then and only then will I give you the receipt.”
The dad looked over my shoulder, then down at the bags, and then at his watch.
Dad: “But that will take hours!”
Me: “Yes. Yes, it will. So I’d get moving. Or… you could take this all back to wherever you got it from and come back with cash. I get paid to count it either way.”
The dad sighed and began hefting the bags back to his car. He came back three hours later with the cash.
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