$20 Meal--for someone else

No, this is not a contest thingy. It's about an incident that happened to me a few months ago. I just forgot to blog about it. It is where I paid $20 for someone Else's meal--unwillingly. Yep, I got jipped instead of tipped!

Let's rewind to the night before. I was at Wally World and a cute little journal-type notebook was placed into my buggy. And I walked out with it. When I noticed, I chose not to return it. Hey, the alarm didn't sound, so I thought it was a freebie. This story is just part of my bigger story.

Now, to the day of the $20 meal: I wait tables at a local diner. I agreed to wait at a different location than my home store. I got my tickets mixed up and gave the wrong ticket to the jippers. They ended up paying only $15 something for their meal when it was $34 something! The rule is if the mistake is yours then you have to pay. Not food mistakes--unless its a habit. Only if its a mistake made by you that could be avoided. This was such a mistake.

So, I paid the fee. I knew it was my fault, so I couldn't argue. I then began to wonder "Why me?" Was it the notebook I ripped off of WM? Was it because I didn't go to Church on Good Friday? Was it because they needed it more than me? Whatever it was, I finally soothed myself with one thought: It was just $20. I'm not poor, living on the street and I will survive. It was just $20. It's not like $100 or $1000---just $20. I can survive this loss. And that was comforting in and of itself. I can survive a $20 loss. I'm that fortunate.

So I feel that if it cost me $20 to learn a lesson about being fortunate, then it was a lesson well paid for. And cheaply too, I might add!