2003-01-08

I think the guy who runs my neighborhood corner store has some sort of beef with the administration of Ottawa�s public transportation system, because he insists on under-charging me for bus tickets. He�s done it three times now. The first time, he missed a button while punching in the debit total and charged me $0.50 rather than $8.50. I alerted him to the mistake, and he thanked me and ran it through again. The next time, he gave me an extra dollar back with my change. Again, I let him know, and again he thanked me and corrected the error. This morning, he miscounted the change AGAIN, giving me an extra dollar. I�d have told him, but at this point I think it would just draw attention to his dubious mathematical skills and embarrass him unnecessarily. So I kept the dollar for his sake. I�m a philanthropist of the highest order.

I�m usually pretty honest when it comes to things like that, actually. Probably due more to a superstitious fear of karmic retribution than any sort of generalized bonhomie towards mankind, of course, but I don�t like ripping people off, deliberately or otherwise. Predictably, I will make exceptions.

Back in the porn store days (those lazy, hazy, crazy days of hummers � ha! Sorry), I was working a really slow shift one day. I was about halfway through, and I�d had only one sausage-squeezer in the store in the previous two hours or so. After I�d politely, through clenched teeth, wished him good day after gingerly ringing in his stack of hard-core stroke flicks, I came out from behind the counter to do the day�s inventory and noticed a HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL lying on the floor, just where he�d been standing. It must have fallen out of his wallet as he pulled out the cash for the videos. At that point he was still in the parking lot, and I could have easily run out and returned the money to him, and had a very grateful wanker indeed on my hands (hopefully not literally). But�eh. I did a quick mental burst of karmic arithmetic, and deduced that the level of shitheadedness incurred by purchasing such degrading filth was roughly equal to the crappiness of losing a hundred bucks, which was also, coincidentally enough, equivalent to the degree of suckiness I�d endured by having to serve the tosser. Ergo, yoink! The money was rightfully mine. Remainder of guilt? Zero.