Con-fection

I’m supervising the self-checkouts one afternoon when a young couple waves me over.

Guy: “Hey, it won’t scan right.”

I glance at the screen. They’re holding an entire sheet cake, the big display size, the one that feeds like ten people. But the barcode they’ve slapped on it? It’s for a single slice. Price: $3.99. The scanning issue is coming from the machine expecting the light weight of the slice, but registering the weight of a whole cake.

Me: *Trying not to sound accusatory.* “That’s funny, it says ‘slice.’ This is a whole cake. Where’d this barcode come from?”

Girl: *Too quickly.* “Oh, uh, it was just on there already.”

I flip the cake over. Original barcode is ripped half-off. Classic label switch.

Me: “Yeah… no. I’m not letting this go through.”

Guy: “What?! Why not? It says cake, right?”

Me: “It says slice of cake. You’ve got a whole sheet cake. If you want to pay the $15.99 for the whole cake I can fix that for you.”

Girl: *Trying again.* “Well, can’t you just let it slide? It’s only cake.”

Me: “That would be theft.”

At this point they look at each other, clearly weighing (ha!) whether to argue harder or just cut their losses.

Guy: “Forget it. We’ll just leave it.”

Me: “Good idea.”

They storm out, empty-handed. I re-shelve the cake, and the lady behind them just shakes her head.

Other Customer: “They were so obvious! Imagine risking a criminal record… for buttercream!”