This week, I’ve been filling in for my colleague, Mark, which has required me to commute to the newsroom every afternoon. Following the example set by the man who founded my station, I’ve been making sure to eat lunch before I leave Ft. Worth so those crooks in Dallas don’t get even one cent of my hard-earned money.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I thought to myself one morning. “Doesn’t your associate, Loren, work weekends? He’s probably off today and doesn’t have anything better to do.”

He didn’t, and we decided to meet at the Greek place on Montgomery.

You’ll remember Loren from the Jimmy Stewart-off back at the holidays. Or you might not; the tepid response led to a decision to cancel the Don Knotts party.

The luncheon would become one of the greatest boondoggles in the history of the Ft. Worth lunch hour.

As we ate, Loren mentioned that the place had a hole-in-the-wall type of atmosphere. The kind of atmosphere that, you know, might not accept credit cards.

“Preposterous,” I replied. “No one carries cash anymore.”

Matter-of-factly did I hand my credit card to the cashier.

“Sorry, honey, cash only,” she said.

“You don’t say,” I posited.

I’m still not sure why, but I did have some cash in my wallet. It was enough to pay for my meal. Loren had a few dollars, and I was able to cover the rest of his.

We did not, however, have enough to tip the waitress.

“Hang on,” Loren said. “We’re going to run down the street and get some cash.”

We got in Loren’s truck and drove to the gas station at Montgomery and I-30. He planned to buy a Dr. Pepper and get some cash when he paid.

“Sorry, no cash back,” the clerk said.

“What is this, 1998?” He asked, adding that he didn’t actually want the Dr. Pepper and canceled the transaction.

“You know, I could probably just pull $20 out of an ATM,” I said. “My bank refunds charges–no wait, I can’t do that. My bank canceled my debit card because I reported a fraudulent charge last month. I never bothered to get a new one because no one ever needs cash anymore.”

I would discover a few days after the bank called that the charge was actually authentic.

In my defense, if you got a phone call from your bank asking if you’d authorized a purchase at Microsoft in Aurora, Colorado at 3 a.m. that morning, you probably wouldn’t realize it was your Xbox subscription trying to renew itself, either.

“Wait a minute, let’s just go back to the restaurant,” I suggested. “I’ve got a wad of money in the trunk of my car that I’ve been collecting for the newsroom lottery pool tonight.”

“If you can’t get cash from an ATM, how are you going to make up the difference when you buy the tickets?” Loren asked.

“[silence],” I responded.

Perhaps fatigued by my list of solutions that each included one tragic flaw, Loren decided to drive past the restaurant and stop at the CVS at Montgomery and Camp Bowie. CVS is always willing to give you cash back, he reasoned.

Again armed with a Dr. Pepper, relief washed over Loren as the “Cash back?” icon appeared on the screen.

“How do you want this?” the cashier asked.

“Oh, hang on a minute.”

Panic set in again.

“Between the two of us, we need to give the waitress six dollars,” Loren said.

“Sure,” I replied.

“But I owe you seven dollars.”

“Right.”

“So we need two five dollar bills.”

“But we also need singles.”

“So, like, three fives and five ones?” Loren asked.

“Sounds right.”

The cashier started to pull the money.

“Hang on,” I exclaimed. “You owe me seven dollars, but then I’m going to owe you three for my share of the tip.”

“So I’d give you seven dollars, but you’d give three right back to me and then I’d need another three to give to the waitress. Let’s make it two fives and ten singles.”

The cashier counted out the money, perhaps lamenting that he had only been one day away from retirement when we came in and destroyed his life’s work.

It turns out, also, that we didn’t need ten singles to carry out the transaction.

We resolved never to have lunch again.