Checking out of a store yesterday, my total was $9.72. I gave the clerk a $20 and fished out some change, eventually handing him $.77. He gave me back my two pennies. “No”, I said, “I want a nickel back.” He looked at me like a three headed martian, then stared down in his palm as his brain started to melt. He looked back at the register, then his palm, the register again, heaved a big sigh, and finally typed “20.77″ into the machine. I got my $11.05 and left.

I’ve been running this test of math skills for years now, always to my great amusement. Unless you think about it on a grander societal scale, then it’s just sad.