An Unfamiliar Transaction

I was at the McDonald’s drive-through. The cashier asked for $16. I didn’t hand her my card, I handed her a twenty, for no reason other than that wad of twenties and fives had been in my purse for three years and was going bad.

I put my purse back in order and only looked up when she said something. She was handing me my twenty back.

I took it and then said, “Don’t you need this?”

She looked befuddled, pointed at herself, and mumbled something. I was still waving the twenty at her, and she shrugged and smiled and said something that might have been, “Well, okay, I’ll take it.” She had some kind of speech impediment.

“That was weird,” I thought. “Why wouldn’t they expect me to pay for my meal? Maybe I gave her a fifty? But how would I get a fifty?” I drove away with my bag, got on the street, and it was only then I realized I must have given her two twenties. And that out of stupidity and stubbornness and a refusal to say “I can’t understand you,” I realised I had just tipped the McDonald’s cashier twenty dollars.

If this pandemic is ever over I am going to need a course in how to re-integrate into society, like they give to long-term convicts and coma patients. “This is how you count money. This is what it means if someone gives you money back. Also, heads up, there are no more phone booths, the money is all different, and TV comes through a tube in the ground.”