Yesterday I had a customer come into my store and buy eleven dollars and forty cents in merchandise, US currency. She was old. Really old. Possibly in her late seventies. She reached into her old bag, and pulled out what was in fact, a ziplock baggie filled with thousands of coins. Nickles, dimes, pennies... She dumped the entire bag on to my counter, and my eyes widened. I dreaded this ever happening. "Could you help me count this out?" she said, in that sweet little old lady voice that makes people go, "awww."

As I sorted the changed, it occurred to me there were no quarters in there at all. I gulped, and said, "Mamm, This needs to be wrapped change. The bank is next door." She said, "please? I couldn't wrap it myself, and they only provide the wrappers." Again, using that little old lady voice. I twitched slightly, and started counting the dimes. She looked me square in the eye, and said in a stone voice, "I'd like to try and get rid of the pennies, if possible..."

I couldn't stop myself. I just started counting them. One by one.

320 pennies later, after losing count twice because of her talking so much about how she collected it all from her son who was raising money for boysouts, yaddayadda, she had 1 penny left....

Next were the nickels. They numbered 122. Followed by dimes, of which we merely neded 21 in order to have the entire sum of $11.40. Amidst the counting of dimes, she says cheerily, "Oh look, I found a quarter!" I bite my tongue. Hard.

At some point during all this, I remember saying, sternly, "I would appreciate that if you did this in the future, you have these coins wrapped first." To this she said, "Well, normally I wouldn't do this...." and then she looked me in the eye with that "evil eye" that old women are so undyingly famous for, and said, "But you didn't seem very busy..." And she added that particular lisp at the end of "busy" that made her sound just enough like a snake that i nearly lost count completely.

I counted out $11.40 in her loose change. When I was done, she held up her ziplock baggy, which contained now only nickles and dimes (and one quarter) "Could I exchange this for bills?"

...I had already spent 10 minutes counting her change, and the lines were now severely backed up.

I was fed up. Sick. And. Tired.

Suddenly, I felt my balls drop an extra foot as I said with a bit of a snarl, "I'd really rather not." Her eyes sharpened, but then went wide, and she withdrew the bag.

I had lost the battle, but the war was MINE! I even went so far as to add, "Have a nice day," in only the dryest voice that I was was able to muster as she walked away with her recipt.

The end of the day came around, and I had to audit my drawer. This btw, was near the beginning of my 8 hour shift. By the end of the day, I still had 264 pennies, 140 nickles, 74 dimes. My boss nearly died when he saw the stack. Through all of this, I have come to realize this:

Old people have superpowers. Because there is NO WAY in all the heavens or nine hells... that ANY mortal being could have persuaded me to undertake such a task.