15 cents short

I went to the good old Albert Heijn (AH) to pick up one of their fruit smoothie drinks (seriously sooo good!) and in front of me in line there was a man buying a can of beer. To pay for it he had a voucher that AH gives out in exchange for empty pop bottles. The lady rang him up and the voucher covered all but 15 cents of the price of the beer. He was surprised by the price and searched all his pockets for change but came up empty handed.

It was really sad to see. The man looked like he was pretty hard up for cash, he was pretty dirty and basically looked like your typical homeless man. He had nothing and was spending the few cents he had on a can of beer! I dunno. It was weird because if he had been trying to buy a sandwich or something I think anyone in line would've offered to make up the difference (there was a pretty decent line on both sides because the other cash register that was open was having some kind of price check issue) But I didn't feel like the right thing to do was pay for this man's beer and I think most everyone else in line felt the same way.

When the lady started to ask her manager how to refund the voucher a man behind me in line offered to just pay the difference so the homeless man got his beer and line moved on. And that was that. He left and everyone went on with their lives...it really made me think though...