Many Happy Returns

In the excitement of being able to use my treasured $2.00 off coupon last night, I inadvertently grabbed the wrong blend of coffee. I grabbed the Dark Roast instead of the Regular. Contrary to expectations, I'm not a Dark Roast kind off guy. Luckily I still had my receipt so I headed back to exchange it today. I figured it would be a breeze. So off I went.

When I walked into the supermarket, there was only one customer at the Courtesy Desk- some bleached out middle-aged woman digging into her purse trying to find her wallet and what turned out to be a wad of scratched off lottery tickets along with half empty packs of cigarettes that kept spilling out of her bag. No big deal, I thought. Then, my heart sank.

Who should be working the Courtesy Desk today but my old nemesis Helpful Tracy! Should I cut and run? No, dammit, be a man. I drove all the way over here. How long could this take? It wasn't like me to be a man, but I decided to take my advice.

I stood back and waited my turn. From what I could tell, the overweight, middle-aged woman seemed to be cashing in her life savings and wisely investing them in more scratch tickets. She handed Tracy the wad of old tickets so Tracy could scan each and every one of them to see if there were any winners. Naturally, it was best to study each ticket individually, front and back, before an attempting to feed it into the machine. After it was determined that the winnings from all of these tickets was an impressive $11, it was time for Blondie to crack open her wallet and augment the winnings with her savings and invest in more scratch tickets. But there were so many different kinds to choose from! Which ones should she buy??? Luckily, Helpful Tracy was there, and while Tracy was the first to admit that she didn't know anything about scratch tickets, she had an opinion on every single one of them!

I stood there, clutching my bag of coffee while this spectacle dragged on. To make the visit even more enjoyable, the customer insisted on scratching off each of the 50 or so tickets she was purchasing right there at the counter. Any "winnings" were then rapidly reinvested in more tickets. This went on until the customer's net balance reached "0".

Once Ms. Snake Eyes finally left, it was my turn. I walked up and set the now sweaty bag of coffee on the counter. "I was in here yesterday", I explained, waving my receipt in front of Tracy. "I grabbed the wrong blend. Can I swap it out for the one I wanted?" Clearly I was speaking some unknown foreign language... and what was this slip of paper I kept waving? Does it have some secret meaning? Is it in code? I explained again. And again. By the fourth time, I was happy that I managed to get both of Tracy's eyes to focus in the same direction, even if they weren't on my receipt. This was progress. We're almost home, I thought. Finally, something clicked and Tracy's face lit up. "Sure!", she said. "Just go grab another bag and bring it right back here!"

By the time I walked the 20 feet to the coffee isle and back, an elderly gentleman was now being waited on. He too was interested in some lottery tickets, but he obviously did not have the kinds of free cash to invest the way Snake Eyes did. He had all the markings of a kid trying to figure out how he was going to maximize his allowance. "How much are those over there? No, not those, the blue ones. No the ones to the left. No, the other way, to the left. Yes! Those there. How much are those? Oh really? That's kind of a lot. I'll take one of those... And those red ones, how much are those? Ok, I'll take two of those. And I'll take two of those gold ones..." On it went until his little fistful of bills were all gone. At least he had the deceny to leave with the tickets and scratch them off somewhere else. I can only assume he left so that no one would be around to hear his sobbing.

With Kenny Rogers out of the picture, it was my turn again. Time to finalize the deal. I stepped up with my new bag of coffee and set it next to my old one still on the counter. Tracy looked up at me. "Can I help you?", she said. Are you kidding me? I was just here. What is your problem? I explained it all over again to Tracy. There was a delay of several seconds when suddenly there was a spark of recognition in her eyes. "Oh yeah, right.", she said, tapping away at her register. "Now, lets see... how do I do this again?" Tap tap tap... "They get mad at me if I don't do this the right way...." Tap tap tap. She made some comment about her husband(!) that I didn't catch, not because it had nothing to do with anything, which it didn't, but rather because I was shocked that this fine specimen had been scooped up and taken out of circulation. Tap tap tap... "I never get this right..." Tap tap tap.

The next several minutes were a flurry of fingers flying over keys and coffee bags being scanned and rescanned... until finally, jackpot!  After twenty five short minutes it was mission accomplished and I was on my way out the door. This was my lucky day!

Maybe I should have gone back in and bought a lottery ticket.