Sometimes I spot them before they do it. People who act up. Right in front of me a person with two beers on the carrying strip. Streetwise by appearance. And yes… for payment he has two euro’s, and a singular beer would’ve been 99 cents. He demands two cents in a store that, like almost all stores, have five cents return policy.

I let him go on for a bit. He uses his lack of Dutch as an excuse to not comply with the transaction. He gets a choice of returning the goods or accepting, but he wants to go on. So I say ‘Well sir, here’s five cents and be off with it. I like to have my turn and you’re keeping us here.’ He refuses, which I also expected. In his mind he is taking on the whole world and feels good about it. So I let the supermarket’s personnel carry on with it.

It takes some time for them to take the discussion from the till, but the cashier finally gets the chance to go ahead and help us. Although the man stays where he is repeating his demand of two cents, we just work around him. I am convinced the man thinks being very righteous. In an alternate universe he might have been.