Alfred got up early and decided to go have a few eggs at the local diner instead of eating in. It was raining, so he figured he’d be getting a late start cleaning the garage which was on his schedule today. While sipping his coffee, he decided not to work on the garage project but instead tackle the basement since it was raining and a bit cold. So he quickly finished his breakfast and headed home.
Once in the basement he realized he would need to go to Home Depot and purchase some plastic shelving which he noticed was on sale the day before. He would then move the items from the old metal shelving to the new plastic ones. At the same time, he was going to purge the items he no longer wanted; so he knew the process would be long and tiresome.
The first item he came across was a bit on the heavy side; and when he looked inside, he was reminded of the old box of dimes his father gave him a few years back. He forgot all about the dimes and remembered his father telling him they were all dated pre-1960 and mostly silver. He had no idea the value or how much the dimes amounted to, so he decided to take the dimes to his local TD Bank and run them through the coin dispenser machine he had been hearing about from Lisa.
He quickly dumped the dimes into a coffee can and decided he would go in the afternoon when he thought the bank would be less crowded. Actually he was going to need two coffee cans and was excited that he was finally going to learn just how much the dimes were worth at least money wise. He knew the dimes had to be of some value since they were all pre-1960 and mostly all silver, but even so he wanted to see how much the dimes were worth in value.
Once at the bank, Alfred asked the receptionist where the so called coin dispenser machine was, and the receptionist kindly showed him the way. “Thank you so much.” “Oh, you’re welcome,” answered the receptionist, “and when you’re done, just provide the receipt to the teller and she’ll be happy to give you your cash,” which went right over Alfred’s head. “Of course,” answered Alfred, and he deposited the cans of treasured dimes directly into the dispenser. As promised, the total amount shown on the screen highlighted was $260.40.
Alfred went directly to the teller and told her he was done and would like his dimes back. “What did you say?” asked the teller. “You don’t get the dimes back. We give you cash for the coins.” “Oh no. I just wanted to see the value and then I expected to get the dimes back,” answered Alfred.
Alfred, realizing his mistake, went to the manager and begged her to retrieve his dimes. “We can’t do that,” answered the manager. “The dimes went directly into plastic bags containing thousands of other dimes, so there is just no way of telling which ones are yours.” “But I know I deposited $260.40 worth of those dimes, and they were all dated before 1960 and mostly all silver.” “Let me open the tray and see what we can do,” said the manager, and proceeded to walk Alfred to a back room. Once in the room, Alfred felt like a real jerk and wondered why everything happens to him -- the bird eating his doughnut, the airport scene, and, of course, the scary night at Cherry Inn Motel. But this? How could he be so stupid to think the coin dispenser would return him his dimes? Of course he was thinking that’s why people come to the counter, to count the coins and then have them replaced with cash. “How stupid was I?” he thought. So after a few minutes the manger came in with 3 large plastic bags containing thousands of dimes which Alfred now would sort through to find all his. What a task, he thought, and what a lesson he would learn today. Think before you act!
