A slice of life.
The power of cigarettes. Last week, I was in a local Wawa, standing in line with my newspaper, yogurt and sundries. A woman in front of me thought I might benefit from moving in front of her. "I have a split transaction," she said, holding out a card that looked like a gift card but was actually a debit card. I let her go. She wanted a pack of Newport cigarettes and had some change that she had apparently pulled from her sofa cushions and car seats. The cigs were $7.35 and she had all but $1.35 in nickels, dimes and pennies strewn about on the counter. She had six dollars in change and attempted to put the remaining $1.35 on her card. "It's rejected," the cashier said as the bad news came up on her screen. "That's impossible. I went down to Wachovia this morning and checked to see how much was in the account, and there's a dollar-thirty-five in there. Swipe it again." "Rejected." This went on a few times until the line built up t...