The 1 percent Tenchi Fee

My ultimate goal in life is to upset as many people as possible. Oh and steal their change apparently. Or at least that is what one woman implied the other night.

It was 9:00. The rest of the crew were closing down their stations and cleaning up. Unfortunately I could not. I had one last order for pick up and I was unable to start counting down my drawer. I cleaned what I could and waited....and waited....and waited some more. Finally a car pulled up. :O I hurried and got her order to the counter to speed things along. I put on my happy face and pretended I hadn't been waiting forever. I greeted her and asked how her day was going. "Fine". I rang her up, told her the total and happily took her money, thinking all was well. As usual I was wrong.

"You overcharged me."

This is a universal phrase every business/retail person hates to hear. Sometimes there is a human/computer error, but more often than not the customer just did not mentally calculate correctly how much things were going to be. I smiled and told her one product was 15 dollars and one was 5. Here is the following conversation:

Crazy Customer (CC): Then what is the $1.37?!
Me: That would be the tax ma'am?
CC: You charged me too much tax.
Me: x_X
CC: How much tax did you charge me?!
Me: Um, 7 percent ma'am.
CC: See, you overcharged me. Here in XXX county it is 6 percent sales tax.
Me:(are you seriously going to argue that with me?!?!?!?!) Um, I thought it was 7 percent....
CC: Nope, it is 6 percent! XXX County is 6 percent!
Me: Oh, I thought the state tax was 6 percent and the County's tax was one percent.
CC: Well, it's not and you need to look into it.
Me: Sure, I will tell my boss that.
CC: You're too young to be married!!!
Me: X_X

Around the corner the rest of the workers were laughing at my pain and grand luck to serve such a LOVELY lady. She muttered about marriage and sales tax, then huffed out the door where it was promptly locked before any of her crazy relatives came by.

So my dear readers, would you like to know how much money she claimed she was losing from my "mistake"? 20 cents. I'll let you digest that for a second.

20 CENTS?! First of all, I realize that there are very intelligent people out there would can do calculations really fast in their heads down to the penny. She was not one of them. She looked like she was one step above the missing link. Math wiz she was not! So there was a very SLIM chance she actually knew how much the sales tax was on her order (as she apparently didn't even know the COST of her order before I told her). Second, she is wrong about the sales tax ANYWAY. Third....20 CENTS!!!! My boss had to pay me over 5 times that WAITING FOR HER TO GET THERE!! Who complains about 20 cents when you buy a 15 dollar pizza!!! *_* She was clearly not pinching any pennies purchasing that meal when we have much cheaper options. Fourth, what did she think I was doing with this "extra tax percent"? Am I overcharging everyone and running off with the profits. Whatever shall I do with all that stolen money!!!!! At least I have a name for this new tax: The 1 percent Tenchi fee. It is the tax that all must pay to be graced with my presence. You may thank crazy customer for the birth of this awesome tax.

And in case you were wondering, yes she did tell me I was too young to be married. I am not making it up for dramatic flare. I am just blessed enough these things always happen to me. If they didn't, I would have nothing to write about. Go me.