For want of a penny

I went to buy dog food today and when the total rang up, I grabbed my bills and my pocket change (normally I don’t have any but today I did) and I came up one penny short. I joked and said ‘have you guys got a penny?’ as nine-times-out-of-ten almost anyplace has a little “give a penny – take a penny” holder and often the clerk will simply reach in a grab what is needed.

Both ladies behind the counter looked at me as if I was asking them to pay my bill. “We don’t have any,” was the response. One lady opened up another cash register drawer and stated “None over here.” Now I have no idea how that would have helped anyway, pulling a penny from one place to another; sort of a “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul” kind of thing.

Anyway they decided I could go without paying the penny. Please note, I had a dollar in my wallet and they knew that, it just didn’t make sense to break a dollar for me to get 99 cents in change.

I walked out to my truck dropped in the dog food and remembered I had picked up a penny off the floorboard earlier in the day. I grabbed it and went back inside. I was smiling as I went because I couldn’t believe I was doing this.

When I got back to the counter, the two ladies were still rummaging through drawers trying to find a penny.