Keely wanted some McDonald’s after a long day of cleaning our house and re-arranging furniture. It wasn’t exactly striking my fancy so I headed over to the Taco Bell being allured by the rumors of a Bacon Cheddar Gordita Crunch (the only combination of two popular internet memes “TACOS” and “BACON”). The plan was to go get her food after mine, that way her’s would be hotter and fresher. I walked into Taco Bell and there was a moderate amount of people already waiting. There were three waiting for their food, one waiting to order and another in-between the two groups causing a mild ruckus at the counter. A medium sized man with light skin and blonde hair was disputing the change he had received. The thin black kid behind the counter was arguing the fact that he had accidentally shorted the customer a ten dollar bill. The customer waiting to order told the cashier to run back the security footage and check it out. Eventually the kid just gave in and gave the guy a ten. The white guy joined the other people waiting to get their orders.
The guy waiting to order began ordering like this was his first day out of the box and I was getting irritated. The guy who had the issue walked passed me as he left with what looked like one taco and small cup of ice water. This seemed odd to me but not as odd as the guy in front of me was annoying. Now he appeared to be asking what a biscuit was (my local taco bell is also a KFC). I decided that even though for $3.99 I could have gotten seven honey BBQ boneless wings, I needed to get back to Keely who had been starving. This was simply taking too long. I left.
I got into my car and saw the “missing change” guy getting into a dilapidated maroon van. Not thinking to much of this I got into my car and left the parking lot, not too surprisingly following the maroon van. I drove the two blocks over to hit the Mickey D’s all the time this van was in front of me. He even went into the McDonalds. I tried to get out of my car as fast as I could because I didn’t want to wait on this joker again, but he jumped out of the van as if before the vehicle was even in park.
I stood behind “van” guy and watched him order one McDouble (which is the new $1.00 two patty one slice of cheese version of the Double Cheese Burger (Double Cheese Burgers are no longer on the dollar menu, inflation and that other slice of cheese have just moved it to a whole nother level)). He handed the cashier, a young twenties white girl with long dark hair pulled up into the back of a baseball cap, a $20 bill. She returned his change. I was watching closely this time. One, two, three dollars, a five, and then a ten and some change. She almost counted it like a banker might. He brought the money close to him, slipped the five and the change into his pocket and began counting the money. It was now short a five and he showed her moving each bill from his one had to the other. She apologized for her mistake and promised to get the money out of the drawer during the next transaction. The next transaction was my order. I received, just as he had, perfect change. Then she gave him another five dollar bill. Our wait time was long as the drive through was just as busy as the dinning room. This gave me a lot of time to think about what happened and debate in an inner turmoil what if anything I should do about it. As I stood there waiting somewhat behind him bored out of my mind finding myself in the usual awkwardness of what to look at without seemingly staring at someone or randomly off into space at something that couldn’t capture my attention in a glance, I turned to my cell phone to twitter. Glancing up at the windows that reflected the dinning room now that the sun had gone down I saw him looking in it at me. He had recognized me from the other establishment he scammed and was probably suspicious of me knowing what he was doing.
It was here my moral dilemma began to peak. He looked like a less than educated individual and had just over the course of thirty minutes stolen $15.00. What level of desperation do you have to reach to con for such a small score? I suppose it’s almost what I make in an hour so if he could constantly do this it would add up, although it’s a lot more work than my job. There is the slight possibility that the forty bucks he started with was two counterfeit twenties. In the past I was a cashier at a Big-Lots, I hated it because every night my drawer was off. I’d always attributed that to being hasty in delivering the change and not that good with quick math. Now I wonder if I just got played repeatedly. In that light he made two people have a bad night, because their drawers were not going to match. I generally feel that steeling from huge companies isn’t a bad thing, but this directly involved normal people and for so little gain. I wanted to call him out on it. I wanted to say something to him or the cashier. As I was getting my change and she was digging back in for that five I thought about giving her a sign. Maybe it was a coward move but I didn’t see any scenario where it didn’t play out with him blowing his top and beginning an altercation. After she gave him the money I wanted to physically hurt him. These thoughts played out in my mind and whether I won or lost a fight or actually killed him, I was going to be in more trouble than he was going to be for stealing five dollars. I have a job, a house, two cars and a wife. Keeping those things is my incentive not to go around beating and killing people even if they deserve it.
We ended up leaving the parking lot at the same time, he got back into that van, only this time I noticed he got in on the passenger side. As soon as he did it tore ass out of the parking lot. I thought as it sped away that it might be on it’s way to one of the other fast food places on that street. I was surprised to see it continue on. Shocked more so that he had a get-a-way drive for his $15.00 heist. They were probably meth-addicts just working on a fix. And to all this I am just and observer. It made me feel like “the mentalist” or a magician to have picked up on this just from being near the situation. However it also made me feel helpless to watch it/let it happen. I left on my way home wishing I was an off duty cop in plain clothes that could have apprehended him legally.
