Yesterday

Yes, I know I told you about yesterday, yesterday. But I didn’t tell you everything. The stuff with the bank went down as described, and I left without raising my voice or cursing their stupid policies (I mean out loud).

However, I wasn’t in the best of moods. Agitated kind of sums it up. Unfortunately I still had some shopping to do. R’s stolen pens needed replacing, and J’s got a birthday coming up which I haven’t prepared for in the least.

But I’m also broke, and so riffled through my gift vouchers to see where I would be shopping. Except even they’ve changed. Nowadays you get store gift cards to slip in your wallet, but there not as good as tokens because you’re often never sure how much you’ve got on them.

But though I have a super stash of garden, record and book tokens, I didn’t have any store ones. Which was a problem, because R pens were going to cost near on twenty pounds. So I got clever. Figured I’d go into a well known stationery store that also sells a lot of books and thus accepts book tokens.

But I also know you’re not supposed to use book tokens for stationery. However being in an agitated mood gave me an edge not often seen, and I decided to try my luck.

Picked up all R’s pens and found a book for J, before heading to the till. There, I present a £25 book token and a gift store card I had found in my bag, but which I knew only had around £1.50 on it.

The girl swished through the £1.50 gift card first, before picking up the token without a thought. Hohoho I was feeling pleased with myself! I even gave her a smile!

Then she stopped. Only to tell me the till wouldn’t allow her to enter the token now she had entered the card.

My heart dropped! This was going to cost me more cash than not being clever in the first place would have! She asked for my debit card for the balance. But I seriously am broke! And after the nonsense in the bank, severely pissed off with being the customer who’s always wrong!

I shook my head and decided to be honest and explained I wanted to spend as little cash as possible. And at that moment she saw through me. And so she played the upper hand and told me I couldn’t use the £25 book token for the pens anyway.

It’s a fair cop. But at the very least I wanted the £1.50 off the pens, and the book to come off the token.

The stakes upped as the queue behind me lengthened and she complained she’d have to void the transaction and re-enter it. Now normally this pitiful plea of inconvenience would have me backing down and handing over my debit card. But right then, I wouldn’t have cared if she had to scale the roof to complete the purchase the way I wanted. I stood firm and gave her a shrug.

But I could see she wasn’t happy as she tapped her keys. Then in a very testy tone, she told me she wouldn’t be giving me cash as change from the token.

She got a smile for that because I love my friendly tokens! Cash goes immediately, but tokens sit quietly to save the day when I need them most, whether it be for buying birthday pressies when I’m broke, or cheering me up with something for the garden when I’m low (but still broke ;o)), I love tokens!

So first, she scans the book and uses the token to pay for it. But stops again and hurries off to get the manager. Very nice chap, know him from my younger days. She explains what I’m trying to do and he nods. With a smile he leans over and explains to me, they don’t do book tokens any more, it’s all store cards now. Would I mind a store card instead of a book token as the change?

Would I mind? Of course not! I smiled at the original assistant as she credited a store card and handed it to me.

Then we had the pen transaction. You know what happened don’t you? Hehehe

She totals the items up. And I hand over the original store card with £1.50 on it. Shortly followed by the store card she had just handed me. No cash involved.

Sing along with me: I won. I won. I won, I won, I won!

Ah, but if looks could kill. She hates me, I could feel it. Did I care? Strangely for me, not in the least.