Never a Dull Moment

My husband, children and I visited my family this weekend in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee. On the way home, we stopped at the Cracker Barrel to eat a late lunch / early dinner. We had a very nice waitress and the food was delicious. After we ate, we sat there for a few minutes talking. Micah and I were on the same side of the table and there was a large family sitting directly behind us. After we finished eating, an older gentleman turned around and it was obvious that he wanted to strike up a conversation.

"Hello there, young man," he began. "How are you today?"

Micah told him that he was fine and the man said, "Do you play football?"

Micah just kind of looked at him and so the man said, "What's your sport? Do you play football?"

I was sitting there thinking, "Gee, couldn't the guy have asked him the boiling point of water, the name of the first vehicle in outerspace or something easy like that..."

But instead he again said, "Do you watch a lot of football?"

Sure enough, Micah said, "I don't know what that is."

Of course the man looked at Micah - and THEN AT ME - as if we were from another planet!

Now to the child's credit, it was very noisy in the restaurant and the man did have an accent and so we couldn't hear him very well. Instead of pointing out the obvious difficulties, however, I said, "Micah doesn't play sports. He is more of a science kind of guy. He wants to be a scientist when he grows up."

The man looked at Micah and Micah said, "I want to work for the Army Core of Engineers."

Hmmm. That gave the man something to think about. He said something else about sports and I said, "We just don't really play any sports, but he does know what football is. He just misunderstood you."

The man decided to change direction at that point and said, "The Army Core of Engineers, huh? Are you familiar with the Oak Ridge Power Plant? I used to work there. I helped develop various cooling systems to test."

After that we had a nice conversation that was more in line with things we were familiar with.

He proceeded to tell us about his background, his family, his work history, and all the while I was wondering what his family thought about the fact that he had talked much more with us than with them. Meanwhile, my children had all finished eating, the to-go boxes had been packed and everyone at my table was anxious to leave so I politely excused us from the table. It was nice to meet him, but we needed to go.

I told Hannah and Christopher that they could pick out a small bag of candy to share. Basically, the day before, the other children had picked out something and it was enough to last for a few days, but Christopher and Hannah had chosen a very small candy so we told them they could get something else and share it so they each picked one of those small 2 for $1.00 bags of candy. I asked Chris to pay for them while I went and gave the waitress her tip. When I came back out, he was still standing in the same spot and still had the bags of candy in his hand.

I took the candy from him and told him to just take the children to the van and I would pay. He walked everyone to the van and I was standing there with the candy and Hannah, who stayed behind with me. I went to the register and paid for the candy, the lady put it in a bag, and I walked out to the van. When I got to the van, Chris handed me some change. I asked him what it was for and he said, "It's the change from that five dollar bill you gave me to pay for the candy."

I said, "You mean to tell me you actually paid for the candy?" He said yes. I asked him why he had neglected to tell me this and he said that he just didn't think of it. When I asked him why he didn't have the candy in a bag, he said, "She didn't offer me one." I asked him what he thought I was going to stay behind and pay for and he told me he had no idea, but he didn't really think about it. That just figures.

So then I go marching back into the store with the two bags of candy to UNpay for them.
I take them up to the counter and tried to explain to the cashier that she had just double charged me for these two bags of candy because she had charged my husband and me for the same candy. I asked her if she remembered charging him and she said yes. And she definitely remembered me. We had chatted some. So I handed her the candy and she said, "So you want to return these?"

I said, "Yes, I need my money back."

She scanned them and started to put them behind the register. I said, "But I want the candy back." She said, "But you said you wanted to return them." I said, "Yes, but I only want to RETURN them. I don't want you to keep them. You do the return and give me my money back, but then I need to keep the candy."

She looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

I said, "You just charged my husband and me for the SAME two bags of candy. I didn't buy two different bags. These are literally the same two bags that he paid for."

She looked at me like she didn't really believe me and she wouldn't give me the candy.

I said, "OK. Here's what happened...." I explained the whole situation to her again, emphasizing the part that he paid her for the candy and then she didn't put it in a bag so when I saw him standing there with the candy, I took it from him and paid for those same two bags again. I think she got it at that point or at least she must have understood that I wasn't going to leave without my money and the candy because she gave me both.

As I turned around to leave, the woman standing behind me was laughing and she said, "That sounds like something me and my husband would do."

I guess it was a bit funny. Between the older gentleman and trying to buy the two bags of candy, it ended up taking us about 45 minutes to leave the place after we had eaten. Oh well. At least the food was good. And there is never a dull moment.

Sonya