Register Woes

I've lost count, but I believe we've gone through about as many cash registers as years we've been in business:6. These are cheap, $99-129 cash registers, no POS systems for us. We barely use departments. But there is an undeniable necessity for a machine that adds numbers, holds decimals and subtotals amounts in conjunction with a spring-loaded drawer designed to hold currency in an accessible layout. It's hard to find a cheap cash register, but there are a couple still out there on the market, and believe me, they are pieces of crap. Which is why we go through so many. But when I think about spending more than $300 on a machine that is as likely to meet a fate similar to most of the registers we've buried (beverage spillage), I just can't do it. In fact, I would probably be more likely to spill something on it precisely because of its expense.

Instead of throwing away our last two defunct registers, I stowed them in the garage at home. The first one died when a customer who had never been in before (and surely hasn't been back since) knocked her 16oz mocha over, pretty much filling the machine with espresso, chocolate and milk. The next one, a different model, slowly crapped out, so that whoever was using the register at the moment thought they were going crazy. I was saving this one for Dave H., who mentioned that he would really like to destroy it personally.

I never know the proper way to dispose of electronics so I stow them in my garage until someone takes them off my hands. Earlier this summer, in a brief moment of inspiration, I began the task of cleaning out the garage. Caleb, the 4 year old kid who briefly lived across the street, came over to 'help.' Whilst trying to first open every mysterious box and review the contents and second create a structure to the growing chaos that is facing a project that needs its own production coordinator, Caleb entertained and annoyed me with stories of his dad driving too fast, his next birthday party at Chuckee Cheese, and how Jesus made him. I found the cash registers and put them in the "yard sale" pile, because someone might want some broken registers, right? Caleb wanted to see if they worked, and I told him no, and he asked why, and I said, here I'll show you. So I plugged one in, and it turned on. I typed in some numbers, and hit some departments, and hit cash. It did not go crazy on me. I plugged in the other one and it did the same thing--a year and a half in a garage had some magical restorative effect on these machines. Then Caleb showed me how to run the tape through the machine so that it can print a receipt, something I had never learned myself. Then he asked if he could have one so I sent him home.

Last month our current cash register got a little 'funny' when it came into contact with an iced sweet tea, but after one night of rest it seemed to work fine. That is until yesterday, when it suddenly did not appreciate you using the number "0", so we took to ringing in items for $1.49, etc... Apparently, things have deteriorated since yesterday because I got the call this morning to bring in the backups. I am crossing my fingers that at least one is up to the task, long enough for me to shop around for another crappy register.