Monday Morons--Gas Stations

Well, this isn't that bad, but it did get me a bit ticked off last week.

So I am on my way to school or something, and I stop to buy gas. And I was going to buy about twenty dollars worth of gas and then maybe go inside and buy a hot chocolate or something. And you know, you have these pay at the pump things now, so you take out your plastic and put that in the slot before you start pumping gas. So I did that, and maybe I'm not totally awake yet, cause I'm wondering if I forgot to put in my pin number or something. But I guess not, cause the gas starts okay.

And then this woman comes outside and asks me if I paid at the pump for my gas. And that seems an odd question. I mean, that's what most of us do now, unless we are paying with cash for some reason, or the outside computer isn't working and there's a sign up requesting that we all pay inside, or maybe it's a really old station run by mom and pop who haven't bothered to upgrade to pay at the pump. But whatever. Maybe this lady is from Smallville and they don't have pay at the pump or something like that, or maybe she's just nosy. Whatever.

So I nod. And she just looks confused for a moment. And then she says that she had just gone inside and paid for ten dollars of gas, but she must have said the wrong number pump, cause she wasn't getting any gas on her side. And about that time the gas on my side stops at $10.

So we go inside and we look, when you look at the lady's car it's easy to get confused and give the number for the next pump over from hers. So we tell the cashier what happened.

And the cashier doesn't care and doesn't do anything about it. That's our problem. I can give the lady ten dollars if I want to.

I don't have ten dollars on me.

The cashier still isn't going to do anything about it. She won't refund the woman's ten dollars, and she won't give her ten dollars credit on her pump.

Now I'm about to get really upset, when I realize that since my card probably did not go through, and I can just buy the lady ten dollars of gas with my card. So we did that, and the lady left, and I left without buying hot chocolate or more gas like I'd originally planned.

Well, that sort of thing must happen all of the time, and you'd think that the people at the gas station would have some way of refunding the lady's money. Especially since I'm standing there willing to help right the situation. I'm sure this happens with people who are not as nice as me who might have just driven off with the gas the lady had paid for. Or maybe people just drive off before they realize there's a problem. Or maybe they realize there's a problem but don't figure out how to fix it themselves the way we did.

Anyway, it just sucks when your day starts off like that.