A Word About Deposits on Bottles and Cans: Print your Slip Before You Walk Away !
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How Two Dollars Didn't Change My Life for the Worse.

Some states have deposits on bottles and cans. You can take your recyclable bottles and cans to a store and get your deposit returned. At some participating stores, you simply hand the bottles and cans over to a person, and they give you money. Other places, you interact with a machine. It reads the UPC code, and if it accepts the item, smashes the glass bottle, and tabulates a running credit for you until you press the receipt-print-out button with your total deposit credit. You take your credit slip to a register where a clerk will scan it and pay you your deposit.

I did this yesterday. Folks came over this weekend, and there were enough bottles afterward to warrant a trip for getting a return deposit. I visited a participating store to redeem roughly two cases of bottles and a case of cans. I handled two of the four paper bags of bottles in my trunk into the store. The clerk directed me to a pair of machines labeled 'Bottles.' The first one read "FULL" and following the written directions on the second, I began placing bottles into it. There were not other people there, but someone had left a balance of $1.85. Hmm? Shouldn't they have printed this out? I left a thirty cent balance on a machine at a grocery store last fall because ... well, it was thirty cents. I didn't care what happened to the thirty cents. Someone else, some kid or some old person will benefit from this anonymous gesture of mine. Now, another person had left a random act of kindness for a stranger to find. For me to find! It was shaping up to be a good day after all. The rest of my afternoon, I would ...

"Hey!!! DUDE!!! What are you doing? Stealing my deposit?"
"Excuse me?"
"That's my machine! My bottles!"
"I'm sorry, but nobody was here."
"That's my money!"

A 40-year-old, clean-shaven, gray sweatshirt wearing, Patriots beanie cap guy was ready to take out his 18-1, near perfect season, Super-Bowl-loss aggression out on me. He was not dirty. He was not smelly.

"My bottles! Those are my bottles!!!"

I had already added an additional dollar in bottles to this machine, and was not finished with my business. It must be his money, so I would give him his neglected deposit. After I finished with my business.

"Look... There was nobody here when I started. It said $1.85. When I finish, I will give you your $1.85. You just have to wait." He must've weighed the options and decided not to smash me, like so much glass in those machines. Instead he muttered, angrily, about how how people don't pay attention, how he just stepped outside, and he gestured to the door where he exited. I continued feeding bottles into the machine. On the sidewalk by the door was a grocery cart with folded black bags, and filled bags.

The machine spat a bottle back out. "Cannot Read UPC. Please Try Again." Some nervous beer drinker had peeled half the label off. When the machine declined again, I put the bottle in a bin of random bottles behind me.

"Oh!!! Now your stealing my OTHER bottles, too!" Super-Bowl-loss-embittered man stopped feeding from his paper bag into the adjacent machine to come harass me more. "My bottles! Those are my bottles!!!" He was not dirty. He was not smelly. He was angry.

So I put the bottle back down.
"There. You can take these other ones, too. This store doesn't sell them so you take 'em somewhere else when you go."
"This is the only store I go to. If they don't take 'em, I don't want 'em."

Fine. He printed his slip, and walked away. I printed my slip, walked outside to get the other two bags of bottles in my car.

"Hey!!! You come back here!!!" shouted the man as I opened the door.
"Just one moment please," I replied, gesturing upwards with a polite finger that I was returning momentarily. I slowly opened my trunk, retrieved the other two bags and headed back inside.

Back at the machine, I stuffed two dollar bills into my front pocket to give this guy when he returned. I did owe him that money, and I didn't want to cheat him. It was his money. And then he returned.

"Dude. This is your two dollars; take it," I said, and began loading the machine again. "I would print my slip before walking away next time. It's just easiest and safest that way." He walked back over and handed me two dimes. Neither one of us looked at the other, but kept loading bottles.

"I hate small tickets," he grumbled, and went on about the burden of taking several slips to the counter for redemption. I printed my fourth slip, nodded affirmatively to him, cashed in for $4.65 and left, grateful that a misunderstanding over two dollars didn't change my life for the worse.