Derailed Express
The waitress came by a few minutes later to pick up the check, glanced at my card, and said, “I’m sorry, sir; we don’t take American Express.” I think I probably stopped smiling. I looked at the card and the logo on the holder; they both said American Express, and it seemed like a perfect match to me. Before I could ask the obvious question, she continued: “I know; we were just talking about that. We need to cover those logos with something else.” Or get holders that Visa helped pay for instead, I thought. “Do you have another card?” she asked.
It occurs to me that sometimes the various labels we stick on our lives are misleading. And sometimes that doesn’t bother us. It should. Phoniness is always uncomfortable, both for the phony and those who encounter it. Ask the waitress.
I’d rather have known up front, but smiling again, I replaced the AmEx card with a Visa. After all, settling for air miles instead of a rebate isn’t all that bad.
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