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to eventually make...and no, it won't get me fired. I will add a tl; dr at the end if you wish to scroll...

After having roughly 30 transactions yesterday, today we had...8. We did almost five times the sales we needed yesterday; today we did less than half of what they were expecting. But of course one of the sales was cash. I'm starting to change my opinion on people paying cash...admittedly, I still like to do so because it's how *I* control my spending (once I pull out the card, the budget goes out of my mind), but on the days we have no cash transactions, there's no deposit to fill out, there's less steps to closing out the registers and we're out of there at least 5 minutes earlier.

Anyways, I was on register 2 today (secondary register) and store manager was on register 1 (primary register--this is important). Two friends stepped up to my register; one was buying a necklace marked down to $52.91. At register 1, a lovely mother-daughter team were exchanging a pair of pants mama needed in a different size, returning a top mama didn't like and buying a couple new tops and a bracelet, so it was a fairly complicated transaction. My customer put $53 on the counter--I honestly don't remember if it was a $50 and 3 singles or two $20s, a $10 and 3 singles--and I have to regretfully inform her we have no change in the register* and does she have the 91 cents?

* this is one of SM's quirks: we have the rolls of coin in the drawers but she absolutely refuses to break any of them open (or let us do so), especially for a non-regular or non-high roller. Makes us all crazy...

My customer pitches a minor fit. "No change? Who doesn't have change in the register?" <me glaring at SM who's listening but not caring>. I apologize again and tell her we have the bills but not the coins, and I ask again if she has the 91 cents, all while desperately hoping she gives up and puts her purchase on her (probably gold) card like many other women do when told we can't make exact change.

The daughter at the primary register pipes up. "Oh, I have a ton of change!". She proceeds to rummage through her coin purse and produces 3 quarters, a dime and six pennies. Voila--91 cents! My customer insists on giving the daughter her extra single for the 91 cents in change, and I sweep the change in my drawer and send the woman and her friend on her way.

Flash forward to 5 minutes before closing. We're allowed to close one register "early" (frankly, with as few customers as we have after 4:00, I'd like to close the secondary register even earlier--maybe 6:00?), so I start closing down the register. We always keep $400 exactly in both registers, so I should have $452.91 in the till, yes? Except...I have $400.91. Uh-oh. I recounted TWICE and frantically tried to recall whether I actually put the $52 on the drawer. I couldn't have...there were exactly 50 singles in the drawer, and we clip singles together in groups of 10 to make the counting go faster at the end of the night but there's not two loose singles. I can count on two hands the number of times I've had a customer pay cash in the almost 13 months I've worked at the store and normally when the customer needs change, I rest the original bills atop where the coins would be in any normal register so no customer can say hey, why did you give me change for a $50 when I gave you a $100 (and they actually didn't)? I should also point out that our registers don't pop open until you've hit the "cash" payment button and then type in the amount of cash you were given. But when you hit cash, you don't always have to type in how much cash you were given; there is an "exact change" option, basically, which I *know* I hit.

Unsure what to do--it's now after 7:00, and I need to get going on shutting down primary register which is the "brains" of the operation and cannot be shut down until secondary register. We also get in trouble if we stay so much as one minute past the end of our shift, which in the evening is 7:15, as the store closes at 7:00 (but it's perfectly OK to punch out earlier, as long as it's after 7:00). I do what I was told to do and call SM at home. It's technically against policy to bother a SM when they're off the clock but our SM is a micromanager extraordinaire and insists on hearing about every problem as it happens. She also insists on the closer taking a picture of the sheet with all the totals on it, including hourly sales, average amount of sales, how many customers we had, etc., and sending it to her because apparently she can't wait till she next comes in to see the numbers. I tell SM the drawer is $52 short and first, SM tells me to recount the register. Which...duh, I'd already done that twice. Then she has me check the number of bills from when she opened that morning (which is printed on an "open register" form) against what my count is now...they match. Then she berates me for a while, telling me I have to be more careful. I'm already nearly in tears and had been berating myself even before I called. SM starts to tell me to just override the final count, which I'm not quite sure how to do (I *think* I know, but I've never had to do so) but I told her I'd been to the bank earlier today to break down a $50 into singles, $5s, and $10s (I'm selling at a flea market tomorrow), and I had a $20 in my wallet, so I would just put $52 of my own money, plus the 91 cents now in the drawer, in the deposit bag so that total was correct, and there's still exactly $400 in the drawer, so she'll have no problem opening tomorrow. She said OK and added if she somehow found $52--maybe I accidentally swept it off the counter or it is on the shelf next to the register (which I doubt)--she'd reimburse me.

I was telling Dad all this when I got home and he asked me what I thought happened. I told him there were, IMO, five possibilities:

1. I somehow DID accidentally knock the bills off the counter and they're somewhere near, but not in, the register (highly unlikely but a girl can dream)

2. The customer who'd been not entirely unpleasant but DID make a big stink about the exact change request somehow accidentally gave the daughter at the other register all $53 in bills when she went to exchange a single dollar for the 91 cents and they just didn't notice (I hope not--the mama/daughter combo are from out of town and even if they did realize the mistake, they might not be around to rectify it).

3. The not-entirely-unpleasant customer accidentally took her $52 back when I was sweeping the change into the register and she didn't realize it. In which case, maybe she'll return it when she sees she has $52 more than she should...and maybe I'll start farting rainbows and growing money on the trees in my backyard.

4. The not-entirely-unpleasant customer deliberately swiped back her $52 and is now gloating about paying only 91 cents for what was an $89.50 necklace. Dad suggested that not only might this have happened, the not-entirely-unpleasant customer might then return the necklace and now be necklace-less but $52.91 richer.

5. The not-entirely-unpleasant customer's friend, who was standing at the counter as well, saw an opportunity to take the $52 and did so.

No matter what, it's still on me for not keeping better track of where the bills ended up. I've been waiting to make some kind of stupid mistake with the money like this, or possibly be scammed somehow, but that doesn't make me feel better about what happened tonight.

tl:dr - I was closing tonight and my register came up $52 short, which is ultimately on me, so I put $52 of my own money in the till and am now wondering if that sole customer who paid cash today and wasn't the nicest person either accidentally or deliberately took the $52 back