I just went to the grocery store for a few things, totalling $4.88. I handed the clerk a five, and then remembered I had a bunch of small change in my pocket. So, I reached in and pulled out a handful of coins, took out three pennies, and handed them over.
She looked baffled, as if wondering why I would do such a thing.
Then, I realized that I’d better give her another $0.85, so as to avoid getting back yet more coins, and picked out the quarter, the two nickels, and five of the dimes. I handed them over, and she went from baffled to befuddled.
She then proceeded to count the coins three times.
And then tried to add them up with pen and paper.
And then she started looking around, apparently trying to spot her manager she could ask for help.
At this point, I intervened (well aware that the manager was likely to be equally innumerate) and counted through the coins, one by one, giving her a running total.
When I reached $0.88, she looked at me like I had worked some sort of black magic…and yet, she was still skeptical of the total. She was about to try counting again for herself, but finally gave in and gave me back a dollar bill in change. At least it’s a step in the right direction from the last time this kind of thing happened, when it took a clerk, a manager, and an adding machine to tally up a bunch of coins, and I still ended up getting back change on a $20 instead of a $10.
So, as she’s handing me my receipt, she mutters with a apathetic shrug: “I’m not that good at math.” Too bad for her a talent for stating the bleedin’ obvious doesn’t pay as well as basic arithmetic skills.