Some customers act like a few cents suddenly stop mattering when they’re the ones who have to pay them.

One former Safeway cashier got tired of dealing with people who handed over less than the total and expected him to let it slide.

Most of the time, asking for the missing change was enough to end the argument.

But every once in a while, someone would make a whole production out of counting out the last few pennies.

That’s when the cashier found a petty little way to turn the situation back around on them.

Read on to learn more.

Here’s my favorite “win” from 4 years as a grocery cashier! I’m a terrible, petty person!

In college, I did about four years as a cashier working the night shift at Safeway.

Thing is, I’m just not a people person—I can’t stand them! So retail wasn’t a good fit for me.

I could never believe how rude some people were and had a lot of fun trying to give as much back to them as possible without getting fired.

I had plenty of chances to try this, but only managed to pull off the whole thing twice in my career.

Oddly enough, people don’t always think they have to provide enough change.

Seems very weird, but multiple times a night, every night, I’d ring up someone’s groceries and tell them the total, something like, “That’ll be $82.04, sir!” only to be presented with $82.00, as if that was close enough.

Do I look like Mr. Safeway himself? Are we playing Let’s Make a Deal?

So I’d usually respond with, “Uh…it’s not ‘best offer,’ sir. I do need that four cents.”

Sometimes they’d ask if I could take it out of the little coin jar, which was great because I got to pull holier-than-thou on them: “Gasp! That’s for CHARITY!” as loud as I could. That always ended it, but it felt like a cheap win.

These two customers did the same thing.

But the two golden wins that I mentioned? Those guys huffed and puffed and rolled their eyes and couldn’t BELIEVE I was going to waste their very important time insisting on those last four measly cents.

So they both dug into their pockets and took their time and very, very slowly counted out four pennies onto the counter like they were doing me a HUGE favor, one—two—three—four, while sneering at me.

Both times, I took those four pennies by sweeping them off the counter into one hand and intentionally dropped a couple onto the floor while saying, “Thank you!” and smiling.

Then I’d ring them up and finish the order and give them their receipt, all while acting like I hadn’t noticed I’d dropped a couple of their precious pennies.

Needless to say, both customers were angry.

Now, it’s money, and people are conditioned to think it’s important. So they started off sneering like they’d won a big victory with their slow penny count, but then they’d start to shuffle their feet and frown and worry that I hadn’t noticed those dropped cents.

Finally, they’d begrudgingly offer, “…uh, you know you dropped a couple.”

At which point I’d shrug and say, “So what? It’s just a few cents. NEXT!”

They got purple! Both times, they got purple in the face! It was great!

Too funny! People can be so ridiculous sometimes.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit think about this.

This is an odd response.

According to this comment, she’s going to try this in the future.

For this reader, it’s a chance to get rid of coins.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer who wants to argue about an item they chose not being on sale.

That’s funny.

That was petty, but it was also pretty funny.

These customers were willing to make a whole scene over a few pennies when they were the ones who came up short.

Then, the second he acted like those same pennies didn’t matter, suddenly they cared a whole lot.

Sometimes, people really don’t like getting a taste of their own attitude.