You Think You See, But You Have No Idea

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Jasper, Alabama, United States

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Twenty dollars, seventy nine cents (aka $27.09)

I was at Wal-Mart the other day and I bought a couple of items. I get to the register, I get out my wallet to pay. The cashier tells me the total, (that I hear as $20.79) I get out the exact change because I don't want to break a 5 dollar bill for 79 cents. The cashier is looking at it. She counts it. She is puzzled. She actually doesn't know what to do.
Oh. I must have misunderstood, I leaned over to see the total on the display screen, I see its .09. Not a big deal, I gave her too much, I say I'm sorry. She hands it back to me, I give her back 20.09. We should be good now.
Yeah right.
You got a hearing impaired person here, who apparently cant read either. Poor cashier. (to her credit she was very nice throughout the entire ordeal.) I can see the people behind me trying to figure out what my problem is. I'm embarrassed now. Why didn't I just say I was hearing impaired? I don't know. Too many years living in the hoh closet. I was caught off guard I guess. Anyway, the girl says she needs more money, I know this by her gesture, still not really understanding, just guessing. So I give her a 5 dollar bill. Okay. That should take care of it what ever it is, lets just get on with this. I want to get out of here.
Nope.
She still needs two more dollars. Finally the first thing I've truly understood her say. I get my wallet out, give her another 5.
Its done.
I walk out studying my receipt and it all becomes clear. She said $27.09. NOT $20.79
All of this happened because I heard seventy instead of seven. Two little letters caused that much agony.
I may not be able to stop it from happening again but I can keep from prolonging my agony.

8 comments:

Joey Lynn Resciniti said...

That does sound agonizing, but at least the employee was somewhat patient. Stuff like that happens to us all.

SpeakUp Librarian said...

Aaak. I hate it when things like that happen. I've made it a point to look at the display total first when paying a cashier.

Liz said...

I've been there too many times *blush* But thankfully it doesn't make me avoid shops when I need to do a bit of shopping. This kind of mistake is so easily done. Because when we lip read, certain numbers look similar on the lips

Hua said...

I can understand your frustration with the situation. At least the cashier wasn't extremely rude because that would have made the process much longer.

Best,
Hua
Director of Blogger Networks
wellsphere.com

Frieda Loves Bread said...

Happens to the best of us! I'm a 40 something year old hoh mom with 2 boys. I speak really well and most people treat me like I can hear because of my speech. There have been many times that I believe I have understood 100% of the sentence, but have been totally off-topic because of ONE word. Then people turn around and ask, "Well, if you didn't understand, why didn't you say something?" Your post is the story of my life....nice to meet you!

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Ember said...
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Sri Budi Sukiyanto said...

Verry Good...