Unfiltered Story #212891

I work at a grocery store with a bank in it. A customer who had befriended me over the last couple years, and occasionally had a wild story or two to share, comes up to me, looking rather concerned, talking to his wife, who we’ll call Aubrey. He’s good at remembering names even if he’s met someone only once, and so all names in this story have been changed, as has the location. But the specifics, as he told them, remain the same.

Me: Heya, Aubrey! Hi, Chris! How are y’all today?
Aubrey: Oh, you know. Go out with him, something weird happens. It never gets old.
Chris: You know, I’m feelin’ a lot better than I was ten minutes ago. Do you know if the bank teller’s doin’ ok? I don’t recall her name, but I think she needs to stop and eat a good dinner, she ain’t doin’ so hot.
Me: *thinking it’s odd because he never comments on people’s eating habits, and he’s notorious for remembering people’s names* I don’t know, why do you say that?
Chris: Oh, I was just talkin’ to the young lady, getting some change for a fifty I had, and… she just… put in a buncha 50’s to the countin’ machine, counted me out fifty of them, and exchanged them for my ONE fifty dollar bill! That’s well over two grand!
Me: … What the actual…WHAT?
Chris: That’s what I’m thinkin’! So she wraps it up all nice and pretty in one of those paper bands, the “this is $50” type of band on it, and hands it to me. I immediately say “ma’am, you counted out the wrong bills, would you please check it?” and she says “I know what I’m doing, I’ve been here ten years!” and I keep on trying to hand her back the money, and she keeps on refusing to even look at it, or accept it, and I’m thinkin’ “Dang, did she eat her Cheerios this mornin’? What’s goin’ on?”
Aubrey: She was so -so- insistent that she handed us the right money! I told her too! “Look at it, ma’am! Please!”
Me: Wait a second. How come y’all don’t remember her name?
Aubrey: She didn’t even have her badge on. Or if she did, it was under her sweater, and we were so flummoxed by this whole thing we didn’t even think to ask her.
Chris: So it got to the point where I asked for a manager. She’s there insistin’ she didn’t do anything wrong, then Mark, the manager, comes out and says “DANG that’s a fat stack of cash, sir! Win in Vegas or something?” and I said “No! I was only wanting fifty bucks, but got fifty fifties! Look at the band on there and count it out” and handed the whole thing to him. He was speechless, she turned white as a sheet once he started counting that money out by hand, because, like I said, it was ALL fifties.
Me: Dang! So how’d he know you were supposed to only get fifty bucks?
Chris: Well, I had cashed my first check from Store 222, and James over at 7 gave me all his small bills, and the fifty. Mark verified it.
Me: Oh, congrats on the new job! And thank you for your honor and integrity!
Chris: Well, you know how it goes: if you ain’t got integrity, you ain’t got nothin’.

Because Chris had expressed some serious concern about her well-being, I checked on the young lady at the bank. Turned out that she had spent the last 36 hours awake, studying for and then taking a final, and had been without any caffeine to help her stay awake enough to work. She asked me if I would get her an energy drink, since she was using her breaks for cat-naps, and I got her one, along with things she could sneak eating at her desk, like a package of salami and cheese, and cheerios.

We both made sure to thank Chris for introducing us. Because of his concern, I made a new friend, and she had an accurate till at the end of that day!