Nov 05 2007
The Peanut Butter Pissing Contest
I’m in a pissing contest with the cashier at our building’s cafeteria. How sad is this? I’m a professional 44-year-old woman and I’m setting up for a battle with a 75-year-old cafeteria cashier that wears her stockings rolled down to her ankles and black orthopedic shoes.
Regardless of her age or the scariness of those shoes, though, I vow that I will win this fight. I’m going to crush her spirit and her ability to get away with charging me 15¢ for a teaspoon of peanut butter.
Every morning, I go over to the cafeteria and get a medium coffee ($1.74) and a small container of plain oatmeal ($0.89). I usually always have correct change, but if I don’t have the $2.63 exactly, I leave the pennies in the little penny jar, or take a couple of pennies…y’know how it goes. No big deal, right? I don’t carry my purse or my wallet. I carry what money I need because I need my hands to carry back the oatmeal and the coffee and be able to open doors. (Remember that I’m clumsy and tend to drop things?)
The oatmeal is regular cooked oatmeal with nothing extra added in. But! there are little bowls with nuts and raisins and dried cranberries sitting around. There are also bowls of cream cheese for bagels or butter for toast. There used to be a bowl of peanut butter and those little plastic rectangles of jelly sitting out, too.
I like to get some protein in the morning, so I always add about a teaspoon of peanut butter to my oatmeal. By the time I would get back to my desk, the peanut butter would be all melty and yummy and I would stir it through with some Splenda and a few raisins, and oh mah gawd y’all, it was as close to heaven as freakin’ plain oatmeal could come.
(Yes, I would have much rather had one of those chocolate chocolate-chip muffins or scrambled eggs with cheese and a side of bacon, but to fit into my Execuhot wardrobe, y’know, I have to think about some of the crap I put in my mouth.)
Anyway, one day I walked over and lo and behold, they had changed the bowl of peanut butter to a bowl of these little containers of peanut butter. Okay? Okay. Not a problem. It was probably about the same amount of p.b. that I added every day anyway. So I grab a container and walk on up to Cashier Ratched.
I plop my $2.63 into her hand, just like I’ve done every day for the past six months - and just as she says “$2.78″.
“Excuse me?” I say. “Did y’all raise the price of coffee?”“No.”
“Oatmeal?”
“No.”
“Well then why is it $2.78? It’s always $2.63.”
I am truly dumbfounded. There is a growing line of bagel-bearing, spandex-clad women behind me. Cashier Ratched points at my little container of peanut butter.
“Fifteen cents for peanut butter.”“But you’ve never charged me for peanut butter before, I’ve always added it directly to the oatmeal from the bowl that was out there.”
“We have to charge for peanut butter.”
I am not happy, but who am I to argue? Besides, she’s wearing a hair net and I have visions of her coming up behind me while I’m getting my plastic spoon and napkins with a butcher knife.
“Okay, I’ll have to go get the difference. I’ll be right back.”
And so I go back to my desk, grab the 15¢ and carry it back to her. Now I start carrying $2.78 to the cafeteria every morning.
A few days later, I decide, on a whim, (well, that and the fact that the oatmeal looked like soup, and I cannot abide watery oatmeal) to get a couple of pieces of toast and fruit instead. I grab a container of peanut butter for my toast (no margarine for this girl) and head over to Cashier Ratched.
I watch her ring up: $2.28 for the fruit (salad bar by the ounce, yikes!), $0.75 for the toast.
“That’ll be $3.03.”“You didn’t charge me for the peanut butter.”
“The peanut butter is free with toast.”
Are y’all following this logic? Peanut butter is free with bread, but not if you take it to put in your oatmeal. I’m learning all about fuckin’ cafeteria-lady logic. But, I decide to not rock the boat. Just learn the rules and move along now, eh?
Until the next time I go in and get the fruit and toast and - Yes! You got it.
“Excuse me, you charged me for the peanut butter. You said it was free with toast.”“Oh no I wouldn’t have done that. We have to charge for peanut butter.”
“But you didn’t charge me the last time.”
“Oh yes, I would have. We have to charge for peanut butter.”
And the line of fried egg/hash brown/sausage sandwich plus a diet Pepsi wielding ladies behind me is getting longer.
I pay my peanut butter surcharge and vow that I will get to the bottom of this.
Last week, I saw the cafeteria manager counting tea bags while I was spooning my oatmeal into its styrofoam bowl. I walk over, holding my oatmeal and my coffee and my little container of peanut butter.
“Excuse me? Can you tell me if I’ll be charged for this peanut butter?”“Well, normally peanut butter is complimentary, but are you just getting the peanut butter? No toast?”
“No, I put the peanut butter in my oatmeal. The thing is, sometimes your cashier charges me for it, and sometimes she doesn’t. It’s not that big of a deal, only 15¢ but I usually come in with correct change and I get tired of her changing her mind on whether to charge me or not.”
“Well, it’s complimentary for something that you usually have with peanut butter, like toast, but most people don’t put peanut butter in oatmeal.”
Ahhhhh, the fucked-up cafeteria-lady logic presents itself again! I agree that it makes sense, and I pay my money and take my oatmeal. And we go on happily for the next couple of days, because I get toast and don’t have to pay for my peanut butter because, y’know, I’ve figured out the logic. Go me! Am a genius.
Then, last Thursday, I get toast. And she charges me.
—- Awright bitch. It’s ON. It’s so ON. —-
HOT LOVE
Bwahahaa… I’m sorry to laugh, but that would frustrate the bejeebus out of me. Every time I go to a specific Dunkin Donuts, my tab is different. I don’t understand how they’re charging me, but I go through the drive-thru, so I don’t have teh heart to argue and hold up everyone behind me. To make it worse, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts closer to my house that ALWAYS charges me less. The prices on the menu are the same. So, hell… I don’t know.
It’s the little things, isn’t it? Look, that woman is making peanuts (excuse the pun); pay her the higher amount every day and she can pocket the 15 cents if she forgets to charge you for the peanut butter. You’re just after consistency, right? (sorry, another pun)
Wow, I would be pissing mad too. I think I’d even go as far as to tell her to get her supervisor right then and their to make them state in front of witnesses what the actual rules are. Seems like she is just screwing with your head.
OMG! We have the SAME cafeteria person! We get charged for tomatoes and lettuce on burgers. And God forbid we want TWO packs of crackers with our chili.
The price is NEVER the same. And I get the same damn thing. Apparently the price of ice has gone up.
You tell cafeteria manager that I regularly eat peanut butter in my oatmeal. It is delicious and protein-rific. So there!
All the delis near me vary their pricing based upon whoever is running the cash register–85 cents for a diet coke one day, $1 the next, $90 the next.
SOOOO needed this post today *LOL* I’m ruling for Team Hot on this one; Team Lunch Lady needs to move to the other register.
15 cents for freakin’ PEANUT BUTTER? ARE they nuckin’ futz??? Oy Vey…
Hmm, I’d get a jar of peanut butter and put it in your desk. Then I’d take my hormonally charged pregnant ass on down to her little cart of dictatorship and I’d tell her where to shove the complimentary raisins.
It’s the PRINCIPLE of it… plus, oatmeal is starch… as in toast.. oh, forget it, I’ll be banging my head on my desk in about 30 more seconds if I try to apply logic to the Cafeteria “mob.”
I’d bring a jar of peanut butter from home and leave it in my desk.
LOL! That is hilarious, Hot. Just start bringing all your stuff from home so that your bottom desk drawer can look like the breakfast aisle like mine does!
She’s clearly messin’ witcha. As an aside, have you tried that Chocolate Peanut Butter that Peanut Butter and Co. makes? Yummy! They also have a very good Cinnamon Raisin variety. Hm. Come to think of it, buy yourself a jar, leave it in your desk at work, and tell the cashier to stick her PB where the sun don’t shine!
I am reminded of the Janitor on “Scrubs” — maybe Cafeteria Lady has a vendetta against you.
Hilarious!
I’m with ya, on principal. I’d probably bring in a jar, as suggested.
OMG, you are crackin me up. That is something that would TOTALLY happen to me, because I exist in the Bermuda Triangle of ridiculous shit like that.
I would start wearing Peanut Butter related buttons with slogans on them, just to mess with her head.
Like “I heart Peanut Butter” or “Jimmy Carter became President because of Peanut Butter” and whatnot.
BYOPB!
Is it a stretch to wonder if one of her fellow cafeteria minions isn’t running an over-under bet on how long before you haul off and dump a bowl of individual servings of whatever passes for coffee creamer over her head?
My money is on you, sister. Woe be to her.
OMG this makes my head hurt just to think of it. But then I’m to the point that if one more SOB honks their horn at me I’m getting out of my car and committing road rage.
I would:
a) pocket the fucking peanut butter
or
b) bring PB from home, leave it in office, get spoonful of PB, walk into the cafeteria with it, put it on oatmeal and then it’s still all melty when you get back to office. (And I’m all natural girl when it comes to my PB - I ick when there is HFCS and hydrogenated blah in my PB - I just want PB and, well, salt b/c … well I want salt on everything)
That is soo funny. My peanut butter equivalent is same as Kristabella’s–the extra cracker packet. Sometimes they charge, sometimes not.
LOL - this made me laugh. I’m the same but I argue to the death because I can’t be confused too (have enough stuff going on in my head to add other things to it).
first time visitor - nice to meet you
Organising queen
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You all are too funny.
It is the principal now, and I do think she’s just trying to screw with my brain. This isn’t some dumb old lady, it’s an eight-year-old in old lady clothing.
Yes, I have peanut butter for the office on the next grocery list! I’d love to be able to stomach the instant packs of oatmeal and stay out of the cafeteria entirely, but there’s just too much sugar in there. (Oh, and there’s that coffee thing, too - but I’m thinking about how to hide an illicit coffee maker in my office)
Amanda - I love your hormonally charged ass - when you become all beautiful madonna mom in April, I may come poke you just to get some of that snark back, so be warned!
MadMad - I haven’t seen it, but will be on the lookout now. Yummy. Is it like Nutella?
Kristabella and Swishy - I haven’t even tried the extra cracker pack. Ack. Scary. Also, they charge $0.25 for a cup of ice!
Marcia, very nice to meet you, too! Thanks for stopping by, please feel free, anytime.
Gosh that was a good read. I think we were cut from the same tree. It’s always the principle with me also.
I am so going to try peanut butter the next time I have oatmeal!
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