As an alternative to the knock-down, drag-out candidate diaries, I thought I’d share the details of an argument I had with my spouse yesterday. Hey, it couldn’t be any worse, right?
We were at the drive-thru window at Taco Bell, when I reached into my wallet to hand over the $20 bill I had taken as cash back at the grocery store the previous evening. The young man at the window then proceeded to count me change for a $50. My husband shifted nervously as I protested vigorously, knowing there was no way I had mistakenly given him $50. I can’t even remember the last time I handled a fifty-dollar bill. A less-honest youth might have said, "Sure lady, here’s the change for a $20" and pocketed the difference. Instead, he conferred with his manager and then came back and explained that his drawer had just been counted, and I had in fact given him a fifty dollar bill. And he gave me my change. The only explanation possible, since I almost never carry cash, is that the Safeway checker had given me a $50 instead of a $20. I dug in my purse for my receipt just to make sure I hadn’t actually keyed in $50 cash back without realizing it. But no, it said $20. The Safeway checker had goofed. And then the argument began.
DH knows my inclinations and began to protest immediately that I had better not be thinking about returning the money to Safeway. "It’s a megacorporation and it was their mistake anyway," he complained. I said it was bad karma to keep money that was not ours. "It's good karma that we received it," he countered.
The "discussion" escalated, and he all but said he’d leave me if I returned the money. Frankly, he sounded very much like a Kossack making a case for refusing to vote for the competition if his candidate lost! My protests that the checker might have had to come up with the shortage out of his own pocket or that, darn it, it was just the right thing to do fell on deaf ears. We didn’t talk the rest of the night.
So what would you have done? Returned the extra $30 to the market or put it in your pocket? And why? What did I do? I couldn’t help myself. I was raised on that story about Abe Lincoln returning the change. I got up early this morning and returned the money. DH doesn't know yet, so shhhhh!