Five Cent Dues

It was early in the morning. I had a few errands to complete before I returned home. One of them was to stop at a local grocery store, to return pop bottles. Where I live, recycling pop bottles and cans, means getting money back. Sometimes it's just enough to stop for a Slushie; other times, it fills the tank with a wee bit of gas.

The store has a fun machine. If you put your can/bottle in the machine, it sucks it in like a vacuum and automatically calculates how many you've put in. Afterward, the big green button, when pressed, produces a receipt to take up to customer service to get the money in your hot little hand.

I had a garbage bag full of returnables. The only problem was, that there was a big sign saying "24 can limit". I decided to take my chances and ask if I could bring them all in. Perhaps because it was early in the morning, the manager felt kindly toward me, and told me I could do the bag's worth, rather than coming back later.

So I opened the bag and started firing them in. There were three machines. Two can machines flanked the pop bottle machine. I was using one can machine and one pop bottle machine. Then, another lady came in with a small grocery bag's worth. Inadvertently, she put one of her bottles in "my" machine and then pressed the receipt button. I pointed out to her that was my receipt. (By this time, I'd fired at least 15 bottles in there).

She blustered, "But that was my bottle". I reiterated, I knew that she'd put in the bottle, but I'd been there first and the receipt was mine.

"Well", she said in a prickly voice, "you owe me five cents.".

"That's fine", I said evenly, "I'll get that for you in a minute." I wasn't about to dig in my purse for five cents with pop all over my hands.

She put the rest of her cans through other can machine. I continued putting the bottles and cans in the ones that I was using. I ignored her muttering about how 'You can't use two machines at once when there's other people who are waiting', and how 'The sign clearly says there's a 24-can limit', and other vague comments showing how annoyed she was. I had permission to do what I was doing, and I didn't think I needed to clear it with her.

She finished putting her cans in the machine, pressed the receipt button and then turned to me with her hands on her hips. "Are you going to give my my five cents?"
Now, I was annoyed. I still had half a bag of cans to go through, and my hands were sticky from left-over pop. I said to her in as even a voice as I could manage "Look, I'm going to finish this job, and then I'll take care of it."

I guess she had a very important errand to do after that, because she looked at me and said "Well, I need my five cents! .... Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll take one of your cans." I said "O.k.", and picked out a can that she could take. She put it into the can machine, and got her five-cent receipt.

When I told my husband about this, he asked me if I'd inquired whether she would take Visa or Mastercard. Too late for such a clever response.

In retrospect though, this story made me think of times when I major on getting my "five-cent dues". Arguments I won't let go of, because I want to prove I'm right. Muttering about not getting recognition for something I did. Job applications which went nowhere, making me feel ripped off. Moving in to take over a job that's not being done the way I would have done it.

Is it really worth standing there with my hands on my hips waiting for my "five-cent dues" when there's so many more things I could spend my time enjoying?

"Oh Lord, give me a paradigm that doesn't wait with my hand out for something that is not worth the fight. Remind me to keep my perspective about what is truly important. Help me to "let it go" when what I'm agitating about, is only worth five cents."