I recall making a purchase while on a visit back in Memphis, TN. The total was $5.10. So I threw a $10 bill and a dime on the counter. Cashier looked at the dime and said, “Whut’s THAT for?”
I instantly realized that no amount of explanation would remedy the situation, so I just picked up the dime and let the cashier droid do his thing.
We have stories about terrible cashiers, but I once saw a great cashier.
I was buying the paper at the newstand under the King’s Avenue Station in Brooklyn, and the guy in front of me tossed 65 cents on the counter. The cashier caught one of the quarters on the first bounce and put it in his pocket, and took another quarter out of his other pocket and put it in the register along with the other quarter and the dime.
I asked what that was all about, and the cashier said it was an old quarter that was worth more than a quarter in metal value, so he saved them. He took it out of his pocket to show me, and sure enough, it was from 1953. He said he could tell the difference from the sound it made when it hit the counter.
Now that guy could make change from a five!
My restaurant cashier story: My friend’s and my meal were combined on the same ticket. I asked the young cashier with facial hardware to split the charges. She punched around for several minutes on a calculator while I and my friend traded smirks until she finally announced that the calculator was “broken”. She left and brought back her manager to do the heavy lifting for her.