Charge It

One afternoon Fernando has just opened for business and is restocking his sodey pop fridge with Cherry Coke and Mountain Dew when the young woman who visited the day before enters. “Oh, it's you!” she says.

“Er,” responds Fernando, “it's never anybody else. Sorta run the place by myself.” He rises to his feet and assumes his customary place behind the counter, carrying the leftover bottles with him. “What can I do for you today?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know if you had in You Again.” Sort of paradoxial statements when taken together, but who can claim to fully understand the thought processes of another human being?

Fernando nods. “Yep. Just got back a copy that was rented yesterday.”

She digs through her female plastic money-clam-wallet-thing. “Oh no. I only have five bucks, and I still need to get gas.”

Fernando shrugs. “If you really wanted, you could charge it.”

“REALLY?” she gasps as if the concept of charging things had never dawned to her before. “You'd let me do that?”

Fernando shrugs again. “Well, yeah. I let people charge pretty regularly so long as they don't already owe me money. It's no big deal. You can just stick the money in the case or whatever when you return it tomorrow.”

“Wow, thanks!” She beams as Fernando fills out the rental slip, writes CHARGED in big letters near the top, and retrieves the movie.

“Er. I do need you to sign at the bottom,” he says when she about skips out without aforementioned signature. After she scribbles something hastily upon the line, she does skip out of the store.

It is said that acts of kindness never go unpunished. This statement, Fernando concedes, is correct.