Your Benjamins Have No Power Here

My friend and I recently got into beading and painting, and we’ve made a bunch of little bead animals and small paintings for fun. Our town has several sidewalk sales during the summer where you pay a small fee and get assigned a table, and you can sell whatever you bring.

We decide to sign up and do it for fun. The sale will run for three days, and we are both free, so one can man the table and one can wander around, and if we sell out early, then we just pack up.

We bring a few dollars in change but figure we won’t need much, as our prices are fairly low and rounded to the dollar.

We’ve just “opened” and have only sold to one customer before this guy shows up. He’s dressed up in a full suit, way overdressed for a town sidewalk sale. He scoops up a little beaded keychain, which we are selling for fifty cents, holds it up, and then drops a hundred-dollar bill on the table.

Before I even have a chance to say anything, he points his finger at me.

Customer: “Don’t you dare tell me you don’t have change.”

I laugh, thinking this is a joke, but his face doesn’t budge.

Customer: “Give me my change!”

I glance down at the hundred again, then reach up and yank the keychain out of his hand.

Me: “No sale.”

He seems a little stumped that I’ve just done that, and then he reaches for the basket of keychains again. I’m quicker, and I scoop the basket behind the table.

Me: “I told you, no sale. You want to be rude, you can f*** off.”

He did, scooping up his bill and stomping out. I don’t know if it was some power trip, or if he really wanted change without waiting in line at the bank down the street, but my friend got a good laugh about it when I told him about it later.