I was at the store the other day and in the checkstand one over, I heard this little voice. This young girl (maybe eight or nine years old) was standing there, trying to get the attention of the man working at the cash register.
“Excuse me.” She says.
No answer.
“Excuse me.” She says, this time a little louder.
No answer.
“Excuse me.” She says, this time in a tone that has grown in both volume and confidence.
The man with the official looking keychain holding nearly a thousand keys looks at her and she continues.
“That vending machine over there, I put 75 cents in it and it took my money and didn’t give me a toy.”
He asks her which one.
“That one. Right there. It took my 75 cents. I would like my 75 cents back.”
He walks over to the row of vending machines, some with gumballs, some with small bouncy balls. He jiggles the machine around. He twists the knobs and looks puzzled.
“Sometimes they just do that.” He says with a shrug.
“I would like my money back. It’s 75 cents.”
He walks back to his cash register and punches a few buttons and hands her 75 cents.
“Here is your money back, you can go try again.”
This young woman looks at him and shrugs her shoulders, similarly to the way he had shrugged her off initially.
When I was a young girl, I would have let the vending machine steal my money. I would have felt defeated. I would have also beat myself up for making the choice to throw caution to the wind and dropped my precious coins into the machine in the first place. Not this little soul though. She stood there in a glittery sock hat, she spoke up, she took her money back. She didn’t trust that vending machine again and she offered no apology. I watched her walk back to a man and she linked her arm with his.
“I got my money back Dad.”
He nodded and smiled. And I nodded and smiled. Although I really wanted to jump on the conveyer belt and applaud them both.
Friends. Stop feeding those vending machines that offer you nothing in return, they too will happily take your coins and they won’t apologize when they leave you empty handed. It’s okay to save those coins for someone else, something else or even just to save for yourself.
They Homeschool 