A Fun Day At Work

What? Another loser? Trying to scam at Taco Bell? No!

Well, fortunately, not when Sean is working.

Some guy came through the drive-thru in a run-down white-trashish-looking van with 2 other adults in the back, one male, one female. All three individuals appeared to be rather seedy, sprouting seeds of deception and deceit. The driver had a very nice mullet going on, he enjoyed off-handedly telling me crude jokes, and most likely did not have immediate possession of all his "permanent" teeth. His other companions looked equally distrustful and had the appearances of people guilty of a crime they were just about to commit, watching and wondering in anxious anticipation if it would work.

So the driver casually orders three number nines (Supreme Pizza, Breadsticks, Large Drink). I tell him it will take seven minutes for the pizzas to cook. He says that's fine, and decides that he might as well get three chicken quesadillas to eat while they are waiting. So he orders those, along with two...no...four tacos. And that's all. The total comes to over $25 dollars.

He comes up to the window and hands me a credit card. I look at the name, as I always do, mostly for the sake of my own amusement, as I like seeing people with funny names, like Dolly Dalowitz, Robin Moore (Author of the best-selling book entitled "Advanced Shoplifting"), and Ann Drew (Author of the controversial book entitled "Tale of a Transexual Transvestite").

Anyway, the name on the credit card which the guy hands me is Maria Hernandez. We are not required to check for ID with credit card purchases, but whenever someone hands me a credit card for a person of the opposite gender (and in this case, a completely different race too), I get a tad bit suspicious. This situation was especially fishy because the order was so pricey and they seemed to spend without any regard. Plus, no one in the car was Hispanic. I bet none of them have even been to Hispanica before.

But I went ahead, against my better judgment, to slide the card and punch in the amount. The credit card machine went through its duties, and when it got to the part where it says either "Approval" or "Denied", it gave me a big fat "No Stairway!"

So I tried again, in case there was a mistake. Same deal. Both times, I had classified the transaction as "Credit", so I decided I would try "Debit" for kicks, which requires the cardholder to enter his PIN. So I did that, and extended the PINpad out the window, explaining to Mr. Mullet that the credit card machine was rejecting his credit card, so I was trying it as a debit card, so please enter your secret PIN. That shouldn't be a problem, right?

His response was a dismissive one, mumbling that he didn't know what his PIN was. Right. So he says take off everything except the pizza combos. The total still comes to $15+, and by this time, the quesadillas and tacos have already been made. I try "his" credit card again, with the same results. He then says to take off one of the combos and try again. No difference. At this point, I'm pretty convinced this card is stolen, but I'm willing to try one more thing. I tell him that I'll try charging one cent onto the credit card, because maybe, just maybe, Maria is just really low on money. But, as I intuitively suspected, not even one cent could be sucked out of that ill-gotten plastic card.

So I tell him the unfortunate news about poor Maria's card, and he says that it's fine, and that they'll just go to another restaurant. Yeah, good luck. Maybe you'll find one with no credit card security features.

There was one nice thing about all this. It happened after I had already gone on my break and eaten my first dinner. Since the cooks had already finished making the quesadillas, I got to eat an after-dinner-celebratory-farewell-to-the-Apostles-Fast-chicken-quesadilla. Mmmm, heavenly.