Since the truck has been beeping its pathetic little heart out about being low on gas for a few days, and because I have to go to the store tomorrow and don’t like bothering with getting gas first, I went to put a few gallons into the tank to shut it up for a few more days. While chatting with one of the nice neighbors while on my way to the truck, she asked if I would mind picking up a pack of smokes for her. I didn’t mind at all, she gave me some cash, and I headed out to the gas station.

I had to go into the store to get the smokes, so I decided to pay for my gas first as well and to put it all on the card to leave myself with a few actual cash dollars in my pocket. Simple enough task, right? Not if one has to deal with an idiot behind the counter.

Stepping up to the counter, I say “I need a pack of Marlboro Reds, short.” Pretty straightforward language, I thought. She heads to the correct cigarettes and grabs three packs. Before I can even tell her I don’t want three, she has them rung up and the total button hit. “That’ll be $15.23,” she chirps merrily.

I proceed to tell her “I only want one pack.” “Oh, I thought you said three,” she says in reply. “Huh. No. Just one,” I answer back. She repeats the total to me and stands there waiting for me to pay her.

“I only want one pack of smokes,” I say again, this time pushing two of them away from the one I have clearly stated I want from the very beginning of this encounter. She continues to stand there staring at me. “But you said three!” She holds her hand out for my bank card.

“I don’t know what you heard, but I only want a single pack of smokes. One. A pack of smokes. Not three. I am not paying you for two packs of smokes I do not want.” I pick up one pack of smokes and move it toward her side of the counter. I pick up the other two packs and move them away from the area.

She begins to get a clue about exactly how many packs of smokes I truly want to purchase and begins to remove two packs from the transaction. “You said three,” she muttered just under her breath. She gives me my new total. Of course, I haven’t even gotten around to telling her how much gas I want to purchase yet.

“I also need ten gallons of gas on pump seven.”

She looks at me as though I am from Mars and speaking in tongues, and then she proceeds to repeat my new total again and holds her hand out for my bank card.

“Are we going to have to haggle for another fifteen minutes over how many gallons of gasoline I want to pay you for and which pump my truck is parked beside?” I’m getting more than a little agitated at this point.

After another sixty seconds of staring at each other, she reopens the transaction on the register and enters my ten gallons of gas for pump seven. I guess she did hear me say I wanted ten gallons on pump seven after all. “$16.28,” she says, yet again holding out her hand.

I hand her my bank card, and she asks “Debit or credit?” “Debit,” I reply as clearly as I can. “Credit?” “Holy Jesus Christ! Debit! D-E-B-I-T! Is this some kind of hidden camera TV show?!” I shove the card in her hand, not caring which of the two buttons she bothers to push.

I enter my PIN. She hands me back my card and says “Have a nice day!” “It has to be getting better any minute now, because it certainly couldn’t get much worse,” I state as I head out the door.

Usually, I am not a rude person, but really … encountering that level of stupidity and/or belligerence does occasionally push me over the edge. I can totally understand not hearing someone correctly, but what did she expect me to do when she rang up three packs of smokes when I only wanted one? Was I supposed to just pay her for them? And if she heard me loud and clear on how much gas I wanted and on which pump, why the hell did she stand there acting as though our transaction was near completion before she bothered to enter the charge for the gas?! Was I supposed to go on about my day without getting gasoline, because how dare I ask her to sell me some?

I’m going to have to ask Insane Neighbor Lady if she is going to be going back to work over there now that they are finished doing insurance adjustments wherever it was there was all that flooding a few months ago. She may be crazy, but at least when she’s working there, the place runs like a well-oiled engine, and there isn’t any of this kind of stupidity. If she isn’t going to go back to work over there, I will not be going back to that gas station. Sure, it’s the closest and most convenient one to get to, but there’s nothing at all convenient about having to deal with idiocy of this nature.