PUT THE COINS IN THE CUSTOMER'S HAND FIRST, THEN THE BILLS.

ABOUT 25 YEARS AGO I THOUGHT I WAS DEVELOPING EARLY-ONSET ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE.  I was tremendously worried, because suddenly when I made a purchase at some convenience store, I would drop coins all over the place while trying to put my change away.

Then it came to me: the clerks in the store no longer counted out the change: first the coins, then the bills. Say you paid for a total of five dollars and forty-three cents ($5.43) worth of stuff with a ten dollar bill.  Prior to about 1985, the clerk would FIRST hand you fifty-seven cents and say: "That's six" and then put the bills in your hand ON TOP OF THE COINS saying, "and four dollars is ten" (or something similar). It was then a very simple mechanical action to hold onto the coins while placing the bills in one's wallet, and the operation could be conducted with one hand.

Now, however, the clerk simply enters the amount tendered and is presented (in this case) with a readout: CHANGE $4.57.  He or she will then put four ones in your hand, and then pile a quarter, two dimes, two nickels, and two pennies on top of the bills. Often the clerk will then place your reciept on top of the whole damn mess. This in turn forces you to put the stuff your other hand is full of down somewhere and deal with sorting out the mess.

Look, all of you people who employ people who have to make change. IS IT SO GODDAMNED HARD TO TEACH YOUR CLERKS HOW TO GIVE A CUSTOMER HIS CHANGE SO THAT IT IS EASILY MANIPULATED?

HERE IS HOW YOU DO IT: COINS IN THE HAND FIRST!

FOLLOWED BY THE BILLS. AND PUT THE FUCKING RECIEPT IN THE BAG OR ON THE COUNTER. JESUS CHRIST, ASSHOLES. IS IT THAT FUCKING HARD??

Hells bells. You know, this seems a very small, petty thing. But it's not big stuff like the cost of healthcare or the price of gasoline that drives people crazy. Sometimes I wonder if guys like the shooters at Virginia Tech and Colorado were not simply irked into insanity with a multitude of small irritations.

But be that the case or not, nobody on the planet needs or wants to be needlessly irritated.

Repeat after me: Coins first, then bills, reciept IN THE FUCKING BAG.

Please.