May 16, 2004

I was rolling coins last night (it's what us cool people do with our Saturday evenings), and I came across a few circular objects - not coins - that had holes in them. Incidentally, they were the exact widths of dimes and nickels. It got me wondering if I had been given fakes at some point instead of change. It made sense since the only thing that went in that bowl was what I pulled from my pocket at the end of the day, and I didn't even know what these little things were, much less why I would be carrying them around.

I didn't really care, though. There were only two of them, so if I had been given fakes, I was out a whole fifteen cents. It did remind me of the time I knowingly paid with counterfeit money, though. I was filling up with gas, but the pumps were out of order. They weren't fully out of order, I guess, since they worked. They just worked very slowly. There was no sign on the pump so I found this out the hard way. I had been pumping gas for about a minute before I realized how slow it was going. I couldn't keep going like this or I'd be pumping gas all day, so I decided to pay for the gas and move to a functional pump. I kept pumping gas until I got to where I could easily make change to pay for the gas with what little I kept in my car's ashtray.

After about two minutes I had pumped a whole quarter's worth of gas into my car. I put the nozzle back up and got a quarter from my car's ashtray to pay for it. This was before I had my checking account/bank card and could pay at the pump. It is really nice to be able to do that now. Anyway, I took the quarter in and paid, then moved to another pump. I didn't pay attention to how fast this pump went because, silly me, I banked on this store's number of non-working gas pumps to be only one.

Before I noticed it, I was close to having put in a quarter's worth of gas again, so I finished off the 25 cents and grabbed another quarter from my ashtray. Paid for it. Then I moved to a third gas pump and tried again. Same thing. I grab a quarter from my ashtray and go inside. As I'm standing in line, I notice that the quarter feels a little light. When I looked down at it, I could easily tell it was a fake. It was the two sides of a quarter, though paper thin, stuck together with some... I don't know what it was. You could tell with a glance this was fake, though.

I stood there for a moment deciding whether or not I should give up my place in line to run back out to my car to get a real quarter, or try to pass this off as one. I decided on the latter. Maybe it was because I was a little peeved at the place by that point due to their faulty gas pumps with no 'out of order' signs, but I decided to pay with fake money. When I gave it to the cashier, I asked in this kind of asshole-y tone, "Do you have any gas pumps that actually work?"

She laughed and told me the one "on the end" worked and that she was wondering why I was buying gas a quarter at a time. Ugh. Some people. Anyway, I felt it was a gutsy move. It's one thing to slip a fake in with some bills or something, but to give just a fake... That's taking a risk. But I doubt she would've done anything if she realized I was paying with a fake quarter. Who makes fake quarters anyway?

If you're interested, I ended up with $228.00 in coins. Not bad, huh?