* * * * *
Scenes from a Gas Station Deli at 4:00 am
Another clerk had worked his way out from the back of the store and was
handling the register to help Cute Girl [1] with her sub purchases. She was
still at the register when my sub was finished so I stood in line behind her.
The clerk looked perplexed over what the register was telling him, then took
Cute Girl's credit card to another machine. This one had multiple levers on
it, apparently to set the price of the transaction, and he took out a
carboned credit form. He puzzled over the intracate workings of a credit card
machine from the 70s and after ten minutes decided that it too, must be down.
He then turned towards Cute Girl. “The computers, they are down.”
“It didn't accept my card?” she asked.
“The machines, they are down.”
“You know,” she said, digging through her purse for money, ”I could have gone
to the ATM and be back in the time that took.” He spent another five minutes
writing her order down on the back of an envelope and ringing up the price on
a calculator.
[1]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2000/11/16.2
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