Oops, sorry about that...

I'm running late, in desperate need of coffee, and the line isn't moving. No, I'm not stuck in traffic on a busy highway, I'm stuck in the drive thru hell at McDonald's. At long last, I reach the order screen. No, I do not want to try your oatmeal, and yes everything is correct on the screen (seriously, have we gotten that lazy?). I pull around to the 1st window to pay, hand over my $5.00, and hold my hand out to receive my nickel in change. And then it happens. Apparently the nickel was coated in hash brown grease because it has slid right out of the employee's hand and onto the ground. The employee makes a half-hearted attempt to reach my nickel, but his attempt only results in intense laughter from the passenger in the car behind me. So, his response the the awkward situation is to laugh it off with an unfeeling "Oops, sorry about that." At this point, it is clear to me that I have two options. Climb out of my truck and retrieve my nickel, or just let it go. Since there was not enough room to open my truck door to take advantage of option one, I reluctantly drove off without my bright, shiny, silver nickel. I know, I know it's only a nickel, but I just can't let it go...

Did you know that there are 12,804 McDonald's restaurants in the US alone? Neither did I. Now, play along with me here, I promise there is a method to my madness. Now, I know that in the course of one day, I am not the only customer who's change was so wrongly neglected. So, let's say three people at one McDonald's lose a nickel, so that's $0.15 at one restaurant in one day. Big deal? Nah, not really. Now, say that three customers at every McDonald's across America loses a nickel, so let's see that brings us up to $0.15 x 12,804 that's $1,920.60 in lost change IN ONE DAY!!! Now, multiply that amount by 365 days in a year... Are you ready? That's a whopping $701,019 in lost change!!! Big deal yet? And that's just taking the nickel into consideration. What about dimes, and quarters? What amount is worth delaying the line a few seconds to retrieve?

So what is the point you ask? Simple. Where did all that lost change go? During my youth, I spent 7 years working in the fast food industry, and I worked the drive thru window quite frequently. This was back in the day when employees had to count change in their heads, and there was only one window. If I dropped a customer's change, I apologized, and promptly replaced the dropped change with change from the register. When the rush was over, someone was sent outside to retrieve any change that we dropped, and it was put back into the register. Sure we missed a few cents here and there that were picked up by people walking by, but that rarely happened. Nowadays, there is a change machine at the drive thru window, and it dispenses the exact change, no thinking required. The problem is, that's it. The drawer does not reopen until the next customer pulls up, so if the change is dropped, then you are left with an "Oops, sorry about that." Try spending that at Walmart.

So, what becomes of this $701,019 in lost change every year? Is it left on the ground for a passer by to pick up? Or is it recovered by a McDonald's employee and given back to the company to help boost their $4.31 billion in net income?

And now you have been given a sneak peek into my mind. Are you scared yet?