[apak]

Ok. I buy groceries, check the receipt -- I go to this
place regularly and know they're error-prone -- and
notice that they've charged me for some bananas I didn't
have. I point it out to the cashier, who calls the
manager. The manager looks through my bag and then asks
where the bananas are. I explain again that I didn't buy
any bananas, which is why I'm asking for a refund. He says
come on, I need the bananas. I explain again, slowly
and patiently. He then goes to the fruit counter and gets
a bunch of bananas. I say, no, I don't want bananas, I
never wanted bananas, it's just you've mistakenly charged
me for them. But he waves this away, and starts trying
some complicated interaction with the cash register, the
automatic fruit scale, and my receipt. Eventually, after
he rips a banana or two off the bunch and tries again, it
becomes clear that he's trying to get a bunch of bananas of
exactly the right weight so that -- I assume -- he can run
some voiding protocol and take away my bananas from the
cash register's inventory, and thereby work out how much
refund to give me. I point out that he doesn't actually
need bananas to do this, if he wants to do it at all, he
just needs to press on the scale to the right weight and
scan a banana bar code. This is conceptually quite beyond
him.

Eventually I lose patience, and tell him to just give me the
price of the bananas, which of course is written on the
damn receipt, pointing out that he can take the cash from
the register and sort out the accounting afterwards --
amazingly, he does. I walk out of the store, leaving him
still swapping bananas around on the scale and scratching
his head.