I was SOOOOOO damn frustrated today, I would have rather just thrown every last bottle and can away.
We had two FULL garbage bags of returnables. I assumed beforehand that there might be one or two that made the trip from North Carolina—so I was prepared for that.
So imagine my surprise—and frustration—when the very first can I put in got spit back at me.
Well, wait.
First, of the four self-serve stations, only two were working. And of the one plastic station that was working, it didn’t seem to be working too well. (Once I moved on to the glass bottles, and saw that the plastic guides were constantly moving once you started putting bottles in, I realized the plastic station wasn’t working right.)
So my first can got spit back. I looked at it, and it had a Michigan deposit. Ooooo-kay. So I tried again, and it spit it back at me again. Fine.
Bottle #2. Ditto.
Bottle #3. Ditto.
What the hell? These were ALL Michigan cans and bottles!! >:XX
Then I remembered that stores won’t take the bottles if they don’t sell the product…but these were like 2-liters of Faygo and Coke that I KNOW we bought there.
So I tried some of the rejected bottles again. And what do you know? THIS TIME they worked. So with each can I tried, I had to try it two or three times before it finally took. >:XX
And since the moving guides weren’t working, I had to practically shove my entire arm down the chute in order for the machine to read the bar code. And then, of course, 75% of the time it would spit it back at me anyway.
I started to try to flick them back there (so I didn’t have to stick my arm in) and then I got the error message “PLEASE DO NOT THROW CANS.” >:XX
I finally gave up on the plastic and moved to glass, which worked like a charm (as smoothly as I had expected the whole process to work from the beginning).
Then it was back to plastic for another go-round with my Michigan rejects.
I ended up bringing half a bag home and only getting about $2.00 in actual returnables.
As it also happened, I think Owen decided to sit on a nerve or something, because I could barely stand, let alone walk, so my actual planned shopping trip was out the window, and I hobbled back to the car, fuming all the way.
Needless to say I think “bottle return” now falls under Tom’s Honey Do list. |-|