Seriously?

(No mom, that's not one of my children dressed like a chili)

Today, Scott called on the way home from work and decided he wanted to have a little Christmas/Winter spirit.  It's been getting pretty chilly here.  We even woke up to frost on the ground and there was no way I could convince the kids that it wasn't snow as we drove Megan to school.  Scott wanted to celebrate the fact that it actually feels like Winter (and Christmas) outside.

I was driving Megan home from gymnastics tonight after her "holiday" show when I received the call.  Scott wanted to order in, turn on the Christmas tree lights, start the fire, and watch Christmas movies with the kids.  His plan was to grab pizza.  I told him to go ahead and grab a cheese pizza for the kids, but I wasn't in the mood for pizza.  I decided that I would go and grab more grown up food for the two of us.

We settled on ordering from a little restaurant who's symbol looks a little like the picture on top, minus the child.  We split a rack of ribs with some mashed potatoes and veggies.  I pulled up to the full parking lot and wondered to myself if anybody ever makes dinner at home anymore.  I parked my car in the designated spot for my To Go order (10 minutes max).  Although I'm now convinced that the 10 min. max isn't to prohibit me from sitting at the bar and sipping one too many Diet Cokes.  I believe it's to help their employees, incase they get stuck with a really big math problem.  Here's how it went:

My order was $17.15.  I handed the sweet girl a $20 bill.  I then asked, "How much was the change?"  She informed me that it was fifteen cents.  I said, "Oh."  I opened up my handy change zipper and pulled a quarter out and handed it to her.  Oops!  

She hands me two dollars and starts to give me a handful of change.  I didn't realize what was going on and informed her that I think she was going to be giving me too much money back (I only anticipated on getting a dime out of my quarter).  She then sweetly informed me that it was okay because my change back was 85 cents, THEN she points to my quarter I gave to her that was still in her hand and said, "it's okay because you will be getting your quarter back too." (As if I was afraid she was trying to keep an extra quarter.)

I gave her a rather confused look.  She then explained to me that she had already typed in $20.00 before I gave her the quarter and it said she was to give me back $2.85 (plus my quarter).  I tried to explain to her that I think I should be getting back 3 dollar bills and a dime.  She then gave me a rather confused look and started getting frustrated (after all the computer told her $2.85 - she kept reminding me of that).  I tried to explain that I think it is the same if she gives me the 3 dollar bills and a dime and puts all that change back in her drawer (after all, the purpose of me handing her a quarter was to clear out my change pocket and avoid getting 85 cents put in it).  She finally shrugged her shoulders and gave up.  She gave me a look as if she was going to take my word for it...finally!  (And if her till doesn't add up tonight, it won't be because of my transaction).

Scott told me I should have taken the change, pulled out a dime, and handed the rest back to her and asked if I could exchange it for a dollar bill.  He thinks she would have understood it if she saw that.  I'm not so sure.

So children, the moral of the story is that the next time you're sitting in math class asking when am I ever going to need to know this stuff, it will be when you're just trying to get dinner made by someone else because you're too lazy to make it yourself.  And if you don't pay attention in math class, your change pocket is going to keep filling up, and up, and up OR you'll end up being written about on somebody's blog because you couldn't figure out the change.