My older brother Robin and I headed to the store. It was in a strip mall near Jameswood School. We were not supposed to go there but somehow we had come into a little change, twelve cents to be exact.
We had decided to get ourselves a soda. We each wanted our own bottle. There was a machine in the store that you put your nickle in and then you opened a tall, narrow door and selected which type of soda you wanted. There was a stack of bottle necks, each sticking out of its own holder. You had to pull hard to get your bottle out of the mechanism. I was about six and this was all new to me.
Robin decided he wanted a Mountain Dew, it was brand new at that time. I wanted that too, but there was only one bottle of it to be selected from. I put my nickle into the machine and pretended I was going to pull the Mountain Dew. Robin gave me a shove, warning me that worse was coming if I took his. I chose a Coke.
When I pulled my bottle out, another replaced it immediately. Robin pulled his and it was replaced immediately. I could have had a Mountain Dew. I should have let him go first and then I would have seen how the machine worked. Oh well, Coke was ok.
Then we went to leave the store. The man at the till stopped us.
"Two cents." He said.
"What for?" Robin asked.
"Deposit on the bottle."
"What's that."
"So you bring it back. When you do, you get your two cents back."
"That's a jip." Robin gave his favorite phrase when he thought life was being unfair.
I knew we only had two cents left so I asked, "One two cents or two two cents?"
The man didn't understand what I was asking but held out his hand.
Robin gave him the two cents.
Then the man turned to me, his hand still out.
We were stuck. No one had ever told me you had to pay to take the bottle out of the store. We didn't want to hang around the store while we drank our sodas. A whole bottle of soda to a six year old is a lot to drink. Besides, we had important things to do, like all kids do.
I wasn't so much of a brat yet that I would bolt out the door, that would come later, so we were stuck. I ended up guzzling much of the Coke, not enjoying it very much anymore.
I guess there was some justice in our situation. We knew we weren't supposed to go to the store, and we knew we weren't supposed to be drinking pop that early in the day and without our parents permission.
Perhaps it was justice, but it still felt like a jip.
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