Sunday's Surcharge

Honolulu taxi drivers are alerting the public that they're financially running on fumes because of escalating gasoline prices at the pump.  The solution they honk is for the City to allow them to tack on a fuel surcharge to their fares.  Yeah, right.  I suppose they want fries with that, too.  Taxi drivers already receive an unofficial fuel surcharge in the form of the change that the customer is suppose to receive back after paying the cab fare, but which the taxi drivers pocket.  They hand you back the dollar bills.  However, if the change (coins) that the customer is suppose to get back is 95¢ (.95 US), that's theirs.  This morning the cashier at the grocery checkout stand refused to give me back my change because she drives to work.  She needs the change to subsidize her gasoline bill.  So the kleptomanic cashier kept the change.  To her credit she didn't tack on a surcharge to the receipt.