$12

Last night I ran up to Wal-Mart for a couple items, yah right. The girls were with me and the trip was fine, no problems until of course we get to the check out. My Wal-Mart isn't very good at keeping cashiers on hand, which I can understand because it's not a big town. So I'm always waiting in these big lines and of course Cheyenne decides to explode. I can't really blame her, it's 6pm we have a cart full of food that she wants to eat, mommy is in a hurry and we are in a big line and we haven't had dinner. 

So the cashier is scanning all the items while I'm trying to keep Cheyenne calm, remember there are always lines and all these eyes without kids. 

I decided to pay with the cash I had and put the rest on our debit card-$12. I swiped the card and put it back in my purse, thinking we are good to go, I just want to leave and get these girls out of here. 

At this point Cheyenne is reaching for some of the food and Ayva decides to tease her and keep all the food away from her, telling her "No!" PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE!

Instead of seeing the long receipt I expected to get I see him looking down holding a little white piece of paper. Not what I was expecting! He hands it to me saying it was denied, "Do you have another card?" At this point I'm sure I looked panic and for those of you who have witnessed this when I get embarrassed or am on the spot my face turns red and I could feel my face just burning.

We tried running it again and again and he tries running it because I'm certain there is money on it. At this point I could just feel all eyes on me and I'm calling Josh trying to figure out what's going on with the card and the people behind me are all set up to get checked out. They have all there food up, the wife is behind me in line with the food and the husband is on the other side of me with an empty cart waiting for us to leave. I'm panicking because I gave him all the cash I had and only brought the debit card thinking I was safe but No, not the case.

Come to find out from Josh the card had expired the day before.

I've never had one of these humiliating experiences at a store before and it was sooooooooooooo humiliating. I looked at the cashier, I'm sure I looked pathetic, thinking, "Can I just give you back $12 dollars worth of stuff?" To be honest I can't even remember if I was just thinking that or if I started to say that to him or what but the next thing I saw was absolute relief but at the same time, "No, I can't do that!" 

The cashier pulls out his wallet, pulls out his card and discreetly hands me his debit card.

The look on my face now is just---stunned! Reluctantly I took his card and still in shock and hands shaking I swiped his card. Have I been praying to be more humble?

Of course I was going to bring him the $12 dollars but the crazy thing was, he didn't seem to care that I was going to pay him back. He just acted like he was never going to see me again. I still can't get over that.

As I was walking out, hunch over, pride shot to pieces, on the verge of tears and wanting to crawl in a hole Josh calls to find out what happened. I told him and he didn't believe me at first but eventually did by the tone of my voice I'm sure. He said he would meet me up there so we could pay him back.

I gathered myself together, Josh showed up and asked what I wanted to do, I took the money and asked if he would take the girls and groceries home while I endured more humiliation.

I went back in, found the manager on duty and told him about it. Apparently the customer behind us told the manager the whole thing. So I paid the cashier back and again walked out of the store humiliated. 

As much as I felt humiliated Cashier Mike helped to diffuse the situation in a big way.

THANK YOU CASHIER MIKE!!! You have no idea what you did!