Buying a candy bar

What an exciting weekend! What a great Saturday! Stephanie and I each had an assignment for one of our classes that we did today. Stephanie’s was to ride public transportation round trip somewhere. Mine was to buy something for a complete stranger. We decided to go to the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake for Stephanie’s assignment. I thought that it would be easy for me to find a complete stranger in Salt Lake City, so we decided to finish my assignment up there too.

We planned out our trip, and knew when we needed to leave and which bus stop to leave from. We had looked up where to switch from the bus to TRAX, and felt confident that we knew what we were doing. We got to the bus station a little bit early, and waited for our bus to arrive. We couldn’t find a machine to buy a ticket from, so we figured we just needed to pay as we got on. As we were climbing on the bus, I pulled out a twenty from my wallet to buy a ticket for each of us. The tickets cost $2.25 each, so I was expecting $15.50 back in change. The bus driver looked at me and asked, “Did you just put a twenty in?” Then he laughed and told me that I wasn’t going to get any change from that machine. I had no idea that bus machines don’t give change! I guess that shows how much I knew about public transportation. So, we lost $15.50 on the ride up. If I would have been thinking, I would have just told the bus driver to let that extra payment buy the following 6 people bus tickets, and finish up my assignment right there. I guess I was just in shock from loosing a twenty dollar bill for two bus tickets.

When we got to the TRAX station, we couldn’t find a machine that would let us buy tickets with a credit card, so we got on and then got off two stations later hoping to be able to pay. On that stop we found a little machine where you could swipe your card and it would read it. This would only work if you had the right kind of card. Mine didn’t work, but Stephanie’s did.

At the planetarium we looked for someone who we could buy something for. We went to buy tickets for one of the films playing tonight, and the girl gave us two tickets for free. My first thought was, “I wonder if she had the same assignment that I have?” While waiting for the movie we decided it would be nice to buy her a candy bar. After the movie was over, we went and bought a candy bar from the concession stand. When I went to give it to her, there was a different girl there. I gave her and her co-worker the candy bar anyway, and told them, “Thanks for doing a great job.” The girl looked at me smiling as if she was thinking, “this is really unusual, but I’m not complaining.” The guy thought there was a problem though and he looked really confused when I left the candy bar on the desk and walked away. I’d love to hear their conversation after I left. It was actually kind of exhilarating. I now understand better why Professor Clarke always talks about messing with people’s heads. It’s actually quite fun.

It was a long ride back home after we left the planetarium and ate at the gateway. We did learn our lesson though. After going to an ATM to get more cash for the ride home, we made sure to change it into four, five dollar bills. It was much easier to buy the return tickets.