Hidemi's Rambling No.373

Since I moved in this small town, I’ve noticed two peculiarities that I didn’t experience when I lived in a suburb of Tokyo. One: no coins are found on the street. Two: the odds of getting a wrong total when shopping are more than 50 percent. Because of the latter, I check a receipt thoroughly here every time I shop. At a home furnishings store I often shop, at least one item among what I buy has a different bar code from its price tag on the shelf. I’m surprised if they don’t make a mistake for a total at the checkout counter. When I shopped at a grocery store the other day and carefully checked the receipt as usual, I found a mistake, as I’d expected. I complained to the cashier and she paid me back the difference. But the refund was still one yen short on my calculation. As a super cheap person, it’s out of the question for me to give up one yen, and I claimed again. She gave me one yen back. Walking toward the bus stop to go home, I made sure the total again in my head and realized I had miscalculated and my second claim had been false. I got extra one yen wrongly. I didn’t want to steal from the store but didn’t want to turn back either. I got on the bus feeling guilty, and on the floor, I found a one yen coin. That was the first money I’d picked up in six months since I moved in this town. Peculiar…