New math - A Watermelon Tale by R Cane

I recently bought two beautiful sugar baby watermelons that were on sale at K for 99 cents EACH. Mistakenly the teller rang them up at $4 per pound, so one was $8 and the other was $6 when they should have been less than $2.

My grocery order grand total was $103; I had expected it to be about $85. So I did a quick review of the receipt and showed the checker the error: he charged "by the pound" not "per each" on the 2 watermelons.

He rapidly did some voiding and re-ringing and knotting of brows ... and announced with a grin that the new grand total was now adjusted from $103 to $102!  I was aghast!

Hmm??

How could the required $12 credit be only a dollar less on the grand total?? I was really scratching my head ....

He reviewed his work again, and announced that the $102 was correct so no further adjustment would happen!

I asked for the supervisor, who checked the register tape and redid the math and walked thru the same mumbo jumbo and announced that the new - one dollar less $102 total was really correct!

I said $14 take away $2 = $12 so there should have been a twelve dollar refund not $1!

...25 minutes so far...

Next I called for the store manager; he spent 15 more minutes doing the same ritual dance only to announce the math was correct and the new total was indeed correct at $102!

I was now apoplectic!

... 45 minutes and still ticking...

I mentioned to the manager that 5 people were all standing around chiming in and following it all - wasting time on this erroneous math. I commented that it seemed to me the payroll of 5 employees standing around for 45 minutes versus a $12 credit should have been a no brainer ... he shrugged.

I had already paid the grand total before the error was discovered so I was out the overcharged $12 bux and that was that!! I left in frustrated amazement: The dark forces of new math strikes again!

I just can't believe the sad element here: the insistence, to a point of obstinacy, that the math was correct by FIVE people!

I grew up in a world where the customer was right but it seems that this concept has evaporated along with the American Dream.

I wasn't asking for any special favor, just "the right thing". It makes me ponder how we got to space and the moon with only slide rules ¹ and common sense?

I wonder if two 99 cent watermelons gone wrong aren't a bellwether and portent of dire things to come for our society? I suspect that it's no small chance that our most brilliant minds are coming from other countries and cultures where education is more highly prized. It makes you wonder if our greatest days are in the rear view mirror?

Anyway, those $14 watermelons were actually delicious, and are pleasant memories now. (in spite of/because of, being outrageously priced?)

But the new math and bad attitudes are still with us!



$4 a pound?

References
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule