The Credit Card

Short Story Day 103 of 365

The pizza joint was Claude’s favorite lunch time hangout. It was billed as Pizza, Pasta, and Pizzazz, but rarely delivered on pizzazz. The owner was running the cash register when Claude went in. Normally, Bill was at one of the other seven restaurants he owned, but today he was short-handed.

“I’ll take the lunch special, gyro sandwich, chips, and Caesar salad,” Claude said.

“Coming right up, sir.”

Bill tapped the touch screen and the total came to $10.83.

Claude handed over his credit card and Bill ran the bar code through the scanner.

He handed it back but didn’t quite let go.

“Need to run it again, sir; it didn’t go through.”

He ran it a second time, paused, and ran it a third time.

“Ahh, stupid technology.”

Bill turned the card over and carefully entered the credit card digits on his keypad.

Again, Bill paused and stared hard and squinted at the card.

“Can you read those last three raised numbers?” Bill asked Claude.

Claude took the card and said, “No, but I can turn it over like this and read all the numbers. You had it upside down, Bill.”

“Well, I’ll be. I did, didn’t I? What do you know? I’m not used to entering these numbers manually.” Bill looked up at Claude and smiled.

“And that’s my one sorry excuse I get this week,” Bill said.

“Excuse accepted.”