Learning to Pick Your Battles
Today, while shopping at my local convenience store, I was reminded of how ordinary people like myself can change for the better when we want to. This afternoon, I was making meatballs at home, when I suddenly realized I had forgotten to get tomato soup from the grocery store. Tomato soup gives the meatballs a lot of flavor and keeps them from drying out during baking.
I donned my jacket, and walked to the convenience store, grabbed a couple of cans of tomato soup, and placed them on the checkout counter. The cashier and co-owner, a pleasant Korean woman who looked like she was in her forties, entered the prices into the register (99 cents each, for a total of $1.98), and then hit the “TAX” button. Since the sales tax where I live is 14% (6% federal tax, 8% provincial tax), my two cans of soup now cost $2.26, which is 28 cents more than I had planned 
Now, being a student of economics, and having read the Canadian and Ontario sales tax codes (hey, I find it interesting), I know that nearly all grocery items, except sweets, chips and pop, are tax exempt. “Is there… tax on tomato soup?” I asked the cashier, my eyebrow raised in a high arch. She peered down at the cans and mumbled “Yes… groceries have tax, except milk and eggs”.
If this was a year ago, I probably would have argued with her on the spot, and if she didn’t relent, I maybe would have called the sales tax offices to report her and get my money back (I needed the soup badly enough to buy them anyways). But sometimes you have to consider what’s at stake, which in this case, is 28 cents. Sure, it’s not right of the cashier to charge tax on something that isn’t taxable, but there are only two reasons I can think of for her doing so:
- She honestly doesn’t know all the tax rules, which are overly complicated anyways. If she’s ever been audited, she knows how stingy the tax people are, so better to overcharge customers slightly than to be dinged for extra taxes by the auditors because she wasn’t careful.
- She needs the money, and I didn’t look like I’d miss 28 cents.
I can’t really blame her for either reason. In reality, I really wouldn’t miss 28 cents. I don’t shop at that convenience store everyday, and even if she ripped me off 28 cents every week, that would hardly add up to $5 by the end of the school year. I’ve definitely blown $5 on things far less worthy than helping out a struggling convenience store.
Earlier this week, I was handed back an assignment on which I should have received a mark 6% higher than I had, because the grader misread what I wrote - which I know for certain was correct, because the professor went over the assignment in class. But before I entertained any thought of appealing it, I reminded myself that this assignment was worth 2.5% of my total term mark, and 6% was a small fraction of a small fraction of my year end average. Besides, you don’t win or lose life based on miniscule margins (and when you do, it’s not a big victory). But I would regret it if at the end of my life, I spent far too much time chasing unimportant causes (like getting back my 28 cents in taxes I shouldn’t have paid), and too little time on what really mattered - my friends, a fulfilling relationship, and work that excited me. The true cost of anything is how much life you give up while pursuing it.