Lucy's Credit Cards Have Been Cancelled

Kimberly was tempted to get a doggy bowl for Lucy to use for her lunch. It would have been appropriate. However, they had been pushing Lucy hard all morning. Maybe they could allow here a reprieve for an hour or two? So she returned to Lucy with a rather large bowl that would not arouse additional suspicion. Not much, anyways.

"Here you go!" The bowl was pushed into Lucy's waiting hands. "All the cool people are using bowls now." Kimberly was sure that the smile she was flashing was strained. That was such a cliche line.

"Thanks, I guess," Lucy proceeded to move around the cafeteria and loading her bowl. Still upset about the situation with Professor Morris, she was in dire need of comfort food. Mac-n-cheese, fried chicken. She also grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. When she was done, she proceeded to the registers. Kimberly was playing on her phone again, so she thought she would just get a table and keep a space open for her. The cashier rung up all of the items without looking up at her.

"That will be $17.26," he said.

Lucy retrieved her wallet from her purse and handed him one of her credit cards. When he swiped it, the register made an error noise. A second attempt produced the same error.

Lucy looked at the cashier and found his name-tag, "What seems to be the trouble, Jeff?"

"Error message. Probably insufficient funds," Jeff responded. He took a closer look at the credit card and finally noticed the name. Turning his attention to Lucy, he confirmed that he was indeed communicating with Lucy Carpenter. Then the problem was not insufficient funds. Why would she have any need for credit cards or money in her new life?

"Do you want to try another card?"