(I’m the customer. I’m getting ready to pay for my items.)

Cashier: “Okay, your total is [dollars] and 37 cents.”

(I take out bills and hand them to the cashier, and then dig in my change purse and pull out a few coins. I look at them for a moment, remove a couple, and hand them to the cashier.)

Cashier: *astonished* “How’d you do that?”

Me: *confused* “Do what?”

Cashier: “Give me the right amount without counting it?”

Me: “I’m… pretty sure I did.”

Cashier: “No way! You just looked at the coins for, like, a second!”

Me: *shrugging* “Practice, I guess.” 

(What are they teaching these kids in school?!)

(I’m waiting in line at the grocery store. This particular chain of stores has a one-day 10% off promotion at the beginning of every month. The minimum dollar amount to qualify for the 10% discount used to be $35 before taxes, but this has been raised to $50 in recent years. There are two customers ahead of me in the line. One is just finishing up paying and the other is tapping away at her smartphone. As the first customer gathers up his bags and leaves, the second customer begins blaring loud rock music from her phone and puts it in her pocket before greeting the cashier. A group of tall, boisterous young men join the line behind me. They have no concept of personal space and keep wandering around behind both me and Loud Rock Lady. For some reason, this causes her to glare and hiss at ME to keep my distance. I resist the urge to say something snarky about not being able to hear her over her obnoxious music and ignore her, instead. The cashier finishes ringing up Loud Rock Lady’s things.)

Cashier: “So, that comes to $38.00; how would you like to pay today?”

Loud Rock Lady: “Did you give me my 10% off?”

Cashier: “Oh, sorry, but that’s for a minimum $50 purchase.”

Loud Rock Lady: “Really? It used to be $35.”

Cashier: “Yes, it used to, but it’s been $50 for a while now.”

Loud Rock Lady: *emphatic sigh* “Oh, well, just add on two more of these tissue bundles and I’ll pick them up on my way out.”

Cashier: “Well, that would put you just above $50, but the $50 minimum is before taxes and there’s already $3 and change in tax on your current total, so…”

Loud Rock Lady: *groans and rolls her eyes* “FINE, uh, just throw on three more of these avocado dips, then. I’ll go get them now.” *disappears back into the aisles*

(I’ve already done the mental math and know exactly where this is going. The cashier scans the container three more times. Lo and behold, the total is still below $50. She gives me an apologetic smile and shrugs as we wait for Loud Rock Lady to come back.)

Loud Rock Lady: *stomps back up and thrusts three more dip containers onto the counter* “There, ha! You’re lucky I love this stuff! Did you take off my 10%?”

Cashier: *clears throat uncomfortably* “Actually, you’re still under by—”

Loud Rock Lady: “Oh for Pete’s sake… well, go ahead and scan two more of those dips, then! Might as well, they’re basically free!”

(She suddenly turns and grins at me, looking pleased with herself. I’m thoroughly enjoying the spectacle at this point, so I smile back pleasantly and wait to see if either she or the cashier realizes that she’s still several cents shy of the required pre-tax total.)

Loud Rock Lady: *oblivious* “Go on, then. Scan your thing or whatever so I can pay!”

(The cashier obediently scans the barcode for the discount, but no money comes off. The cashier either doesn’t notice or care, and Loud Rock Lady is already too fixated on cramming her credit card into the reader to double-check the final total herself. As her payment goes through and the receipt prints, she suddenly stares worriedly back up at the screen, now cleared for the next transaction.)

Loud Rock Lady: “You did give me my 10% off, right?”

Cashier: “I definitely scanned the code.”

Loud Rock Lady: *all smiles again* “Great! I’ll just leave my bags here while I go pick up those last two dips, then.” *dashes off*

Cashier: *stares after her for a moment, then looks at me and chuckles* “Well, that was… interesting.”

(With my small number of items and the cashier hustling to get the line moving again, I had paid and was out the door before Loud Rock Lady even got back. I wonder if she ever checked her receipt and realized she spent almost fifteen extra dollars in order to save absolutely nothing. I would have loved to see the look on her face.)

(The way our library’s computer system works, overdue fines don’t show up on a patron’s account until the overdue items are checked in. Fines on overdue movies are higher than fines on overdue books; movie fines are fifty cents a day, while book fines are ten cents a day. The system also automatically blocks checkouts to patrons with over five dollars in fines. I’m working the front desk when a woman with a young child comes to the counter with books and movies. I scan her card and discover her account is blocked, along with the reason why.)

Me: “Okay, so, it looks like you have eight dollars in fines today. I won’t be able to check these out to you until the fines are paid.”

Patron: “How’s that possible? I only had a dollar-fifty in fines yesterday, and you guys told me I could pay today.”

Me: *checks account* “It looks like [List Of Three Movies] were overdue by a day, [Movie Title] was overdue by three days, and [Two More Movie Titles] were overdue by five days. Everything’s been turned in; you just need to pay the fines.”

Patron: “Well, I can’t afford to pay that much in fines. I guess I won’t take them.”

Me: “Would you like me to hold these items for you until you’re able to pay?”

Patron: “No!” *turns and marches out, saying loudly for our benefit* “I guess I’m never coming back to the library again!”

(I am a little stunned but don’t think much of it; people getting upset over fines is, unfortunately, commonplace. I put her items on a cart to be reshelved and go about my business. It is my bad luck, however, to pick up the phone when she calls the library later that day.)

Me: “[Community] Library, this is [My Name]; how can I help you?”

Patron: “Yeah, I wanted to complain about how I was treated by you earlier! When I came in yesterday I was told I had a dollar-fifty in fines, and when I came in today I suddenly had eight dollars in fines! How can my fines just magically go up that much? I can’t afford eight dollars! This is ridiculous!”

Me: “Well, ma’am, it’s possible that when you were told you had a dollar-fifty in fines, your other overdue movies hadn’t been checked in yet and the rest of the fines hadn’t accrued in the system yet. It’s just how our system works.”

(I am about to offer to transfer her to one of our administrators, who could possibly cut her a deal on her fines, but the patron cuts in before I can do so.)

Patron: “This is unacceptable! I don’t get how I can go from a dollar-fifty to eight dollars in fines in one day! How am I supposed to be able to check out movies for my daughter? This is really dishonest of you!”

Me: “Ma’am—”

Patron: “You guys are disgraceful! Several months ago I checked out a children’s DVD for my daughter, and when I put it in the player it was a rated-R film! My daughter was so upset! You’re a terrible library! I’m never coming back, and I’m going to leave bad reviews everywhere I can — including Facebook — about you guys! Goodbye!” *click*

(I informed the admin about the patron and the call, and they said they would call her back and “deal with it.” A coworker checked Facebook a few minutes later and discovered  that the patron in question had left a scathing rant about the library on the “[Community] Must Know” Facebook page BEFORE the phone call, hashtagging it with #libraryfail and #learntoread and even “liking” her own post to bump it up the timeline. The admin decided against calling her and cutting her a deal on fines at that point, figuring that she had only ranted and threatened us as a ploy to get us to waive her fines. The post itself vanished from Facebook a few hours later — either the patron had second thoughts or the group admin deleted it for violating rules. And as for the “rated-R” movie she accidentally got instead of her children’s movie? It was “Elf” — a PG-rated Christmas movie.)

When I get up in the morning, I find that it has snowed heavily overnight. Snowplows are making the rounds everywhere, and only the main roads have been cleared, so I’m driving slowly and carefully over slippery streets.

It’s normal winter business until I pull up to an intersection and see two snowplows coming down the street towards me. They’re staggered a little, so the snow cascades from one scoop to the next plow and off to the side of the road.

This seems efficient, except that this is a two-lane road. To do this, one of the plows is driving down the wrong side of the street. 

Freaked out by the sight of a large snowplow driving full-speed down the road directly at me with no sign of slowing down, I decide to make a quick right turn to get out of the way. The snowplow cruises through the intersection and starts honking at the oncoming traffic. The traffic that is going the correct way down the street. Both oncoming traffic and the plow slow down, and the plow manages to squeeze over into the correct lane just before hitting another car, well past the intersection.

I am able to see this from the side of the road, where I ended up after my car fishtailed from turning fast onto a slippery road. It takes a few minutes and a kind bystander to get me back on the road.

Furious, I call city public works and tell them about how a snowplow was driving down the wrong side of the road at 8:00 am on a Monday and ran me off the road to avoid getting smashed into. The response I got?

“Well, ma’am, when the roads aren’t busy, we encourage our drivers to plow like that to save time clearing the roads. They just got a little behind today because the snowfall was so heavy; they usually stop driving like that around 7:00 am.”

That is how I learned that in my city, snowplow operators and the city government think that driving directly into other cars is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, and that they don’t take into account how snowfall affects the plowing schedule.

I’m not sure what bothers me more: that it is a complete non-issue to them that a plow nearly killed me, that they don’t think plows should adjust their behavior when it turns out there are cars… or that the plow never slowed down until it had driven past where I was.

A stretch of my local highway is undergoing construction, which means that the normal two lanes collapse down to one for about a half-mile. Naturally, this means that traffic ends up slowing way down as cars have to merge into the single lane. This then leads to plenty of impatient idiots who make things worse by ignoring all of the signs to merge over and speed up to the point where the construction cones start before they even think about trying to get over. And when they do, they will force their way in, which slows traffic even more as people have to stomp on their brakes to avoid them.

However, this last week I got to see a scapegoat for these impatient idiots get a bit of karma sent her way. A lady was driving a red convertible and came speeding up to the point where construction started. I was right behind a big eighteen-wheeler, which had just entered the construction zone, so there was no room to cut in front of it. The lady in question sped up alongside the truck before apparently realizing, “Oh, there are traffic cones right in front of me,” and, “Oh, there is a giant truck there that I can’t cut around.” I got to watch her fishtail a little as she tried to stop or figure out where to go before her car plowed into the cones and slid straight into the ditch where the road had been broken up and removed.

She seemed to be okay, no airbags deployed or anything, but her car certainly wasn’t going to go anywhere without help, and I’m guessing she’d have some nice big fines to pay. I admit, I laughed as I drove past, getting to see one of those impatient idiots get their comeuppance.