Much Ado About Nothing

Did you ever have your heart set on something so intently that you missed what was going on around it?
Have you ever had this happen? Your debit card doesn’t swipe correctly the first time and then someone just keeps on swiping it until it works? Are you like me, you go home and log on to your banking site to find that you have three transactions pending?

That’s what happened. I watched those transactions all week, floating noxiously in the pending category, a sort of banking suspended animation. I didn’t want all three to post when only one was a true transaction.

But on Tuesday, they landed. I printed the bank statement and just like that, I'm planning all the ways I'm getting my money back. I went home on my lunch break and found the receipt and their phone number and called them, explaining what had happened.

The manager, Meng, told me they had to file a report and send it to corporate and it could be weeks until they sent me a refund. I felt my brain twist into a knot. I said very strongly that I couldn’t wait weeks to get my money back. She asked me to bring the bank statement in and she would refund it.

The second my work day was finished, I raced out into the pelting rain to the far north end of town, trying not to think about Christmas shoppers, or bad weather. I plugged in some relaxing music and traveled against the heavy flow of traffic until I made my way to the store. I politely asked for the manager and she was equally polite while I explained the scenario, reminding her that she had been there while her coworker repeatedly swiped the card.

She remembered the incident. I showed her where it was on my statement. She took the statement, made a copy of it, and brought out a calculator. She added the transactions together and handed me cold, hard, untraceable cash. She didn’t copy my driver’s license, take my phone number, or ask my name. I offered. She said it was unnecessary.

I left, and we both seemed happy.

Then I got home and looked at the statement again. I had a credit from a recent return to an online store. And below that, two more credits. Both of them were for the store I had just left. I now had a choice. I could keep the money. She couldn’t find me, had no way of contacting me. I could have said, it’s her own fault that she didn’t find the credit while she was looking at the bank statement.

I knew that they would probably write it off. I figured they could afford the loss. Of course, the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.

I could hear my dad telling me, “When you steal, you lose three times. I might only be 50 bucks to you, but when it’s all said and done, you will lose 150 if you keep it.”

That little rule of thumb had never been proven wrong in my life. It always pops into my memory in moments just like this one. I knew I had to give it back. I wouldn’t be back in that neck of the woods until Thursday. I would go back and explain and they would be stunned, as people always are when you return money.

Even that started to bother me. I couldn’t let two days pass while I just sat on it. Now that I knew it really wasn’t mine to begin with, I couldn’t put someone through any mental anguish over it. She had taken me at my word. If I expected to get any sleep for the next two days, I knew I had to take it back today.

The manager was pleasant as always. When I whipped out the bank statement again, I know she was more than a little curious. I handed her the wad of money and she looked confused. I showed her where it had been taken out and where it had been credited back to my account. I apologized for having missed it. (Clearly I’m not used to many credits to my account.) She shook my hand.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Julie.”

“Thank you for bringing the money back, Julie.” Broad smile.

No, thank you, Meng. Tonight I am going to sleep like a stone.