Rant Of The Day: A penny for your thoughts?

*Cranky Old Lady Alert*

This keeps happening to me.

I roll up (not being hip, this just usually occurs at the drive-thru, so I'm literally rolling), order some food (fresco style tacos, let's pretend),  drive to the window, and hand the waiting employee my money. Since I'm fairly adept at math and even own a change purse, the amount I hand over is in close range to what I owe.  Sometimes really close.  Like, within a few cents.  I wait patiently for my three pennies back as change.  The employee skips over his side of the money exchange and hands over the food I've ordered and says, "Have a nice day," completely avoiding eye contact because he obviously knows he has stolen three cents from me. 

At this point I know I'm dealing with a shrewd-minded criminal who is working a master plan to rip off every cash paying customer by pennies so at the end of the shift he can collect his $2.11* (which, coincidentally, is the police code for robbery)(although I'm really thankful he didn't net $6.04, which is the code for throwing missiles).

Did I miss the memo involving new policies in consumer transactions?  Is there some new entitlement tax of which I am unaware?  Have we become a society that relies so much on our debit cards that we forget how actual cash works?  Or is Generation Y so freaking lazy it's not worth their time to return my three cents?

What the heck is this world coming to, y'all?

I do not appreciate the identity crisis I'm now faced with every time this happens.  Am I the type of person who would make a stink over three cents?  Is my dignity worth taking a financial hit of mere pennies?  I know this teenager will being thinking, "Dude, times must be rough if she needs coins that bad," but it's the principle behind it, young feller.

Besides, how can my kids ride the Meijer horse if I don't have any pennies?

Okay, that is all.

*You've seen Office Space, so we all know this is fairly conceivable.