Friday 13 April 2012

The Card Shop

It is a Wednesday morning and I am facing a busy day where I plan to buy birthday presents and cards for my twin sisters as it is their birthday in just two days time.

I get a lift into New Malden from my Mum and I then proceed to purchase some headphones, sort out my financial accounts and then buy a sausage roll from Greggs.

I make the wise decision to visit a card shop to purchase birthday cards for my sisters. I spent a good amount of time choosing the most humorous card that I could find. 15 minutes and many cards later, I settled on the two best that I could find.

I went to the till and handed the till lady the cards to be scanned.

"£2.78, please."

Waving my debit card, I said "can I pay on card please?"

"It's a £5 limit, I'm afraid. There's a cash point next door if you want to use that?"

I decided that this was wise. Instead of spending £2.22 on pointless card shop tat, I decided that taking some cash out of the hole in the wall was sensible. It made financial sense.

I exited the shop and dashed to the ATM. As I had to queue, I had time to go through my wallet whilst looking for my debit card. I opened the coin section of my wallet and I realised what a fool I had been. Sitting in my wallet was a few pound coins and a variety of other coins. I had enough to go and buy the cards.

However, I thought about the face that could be lost and the potential for awkwardness if I returned to the store and said to the lady, "I have been a fool, I had the correct change all along and I have wasted both yours and my time".

I decided that in the face of this embarrassing situation and to avoid awkwardness, I would wait it out in the queue for the ATM and take out the smallest amount of cash possible and pay with that.

After a fair few minutes, I had completed my transaction and had a crisp £10 note in my hand. I marched into the shop and re-queued. I think this shows my Britishness, I had actively gone out of my way to queue in a queue that I had just left.

I finally reached the till and gave the lady the money.

"Sorry love, I haven't got any change. Let me serve these customers and then I'll gather together some change".

Oh great. This was becoming ridiculous.

After five more customers, she had the sense to move money over from one till to the other. I breathed a huge sense of relief. She proceeded to give me my change and my goods.

I left the shop in a passive-aggressive fury. My sisters better like their birthday cards from me.



1 comment:

  1. The electronic payment is used every where. The different cards are used for different payments.
    Scratch Cards
    plastic card ideas

    ReplyDelete