In 1987 we were leaving Israel on our way back to Toronto via London. I was looking forward to seeing my London family once more.
I thought that a nice gift would be a bottle of Sabra liqueur. Sabra liqueur is a chocolate-orange flavored liqueur produced in Israel. The primary flavor of Sabra is a rich, bittersweet chocolate. I headed t
o the duty-free knowing that I would find it there.
Sure enough I easily found the liqueur in its familiar bottle, picked it up and got in line for the cashier.
I got up to the cashier, laid down my credit card for payment and that’s when I found out that the minimum charge for a credit card was $20. I had no cash having spent all my shekels getting a snack. I asked, in frustration, where does it say that? The cashier pointed to a sign high up out of eyesight. I moved out of the line and was really pissed at the apparent arbitrary nature of the minimum charge. I stood mulling it over. Even if the credit card company charged 5% surely there is enough margin on a bottle of Sabra to allow the duty-free to absorb the fee. This is craziness. My wife and family were elsewhere in the airport, I was on my own.
After considering the choices I determined that I was going to use my credit card and I was going to buy just one bottle of Sabra. I went up to the cashier and asked her to call the manager. The manager arrived very promptly and I explained what I wanted to do adding that we can do this the easy way or the hard way; but I was going to use my credit card and I was going to buy one bottle of Sabra.
The manager asked “what’s the hard way?”. I explained that I was going stand by the cash line and persuade several customers to pay me in cash until I had accumulated $20 and then put it all on my credit card. The easy way, of course, was to just let me pay for my bottle and this is what was agreed.
I got back in line in front of some British travelers all ready to pay and when it got to my turn I put down my credit card which was accepted by the cashier. She then said “I need to see your passport”. “What on earth for?”, I replied. I didn’t have my passport with me. My wife had all the passports and she was way the other side of the airport. This was corporate madness. “I need the number for the transaction to go through.” She said. “Oh, well if that’s all you need, I have that. It’s 125698.”. While we were completing the transaction and getting my receipt I heard the guy next to me say, “that number sounds familiar”. I replied, “It should, it’s yours.” And I was outta there.
