Yesterday was the first time I ever rolled up the windows in my car, looked around to make sure no one was in earshot, and screamed at the top of my lungs.

(Anyone who knows me is probably giggling a little at the thought of me screaming at the top of my lungs. I'm not by nature a screamer.)

Why, you ask? It all started at 8:30AM at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf down the block from where I work. I was there to buy 60 gift cards as part of the Motivation and Recognition program that I am now in charge of at work. (Did you know that Motivation and Recognition can be purchased for as little as $5? It's true!) The line was out the door and I was immediately sorry I had decided to come in the morning, when all coffee places are crazy and the employees frazzled. They told me it would be 20 minutes before they would be able to help me, so I stood around and watched a cute dog outside. It had the face of an old, aristocratic man. Eventually a downtrodden-looking woman of about fifty approached me and said she could help me. She counted out 60 cards, got behind one of the registers and began swiping.

And swiping.

And swiping.

Imagine that 54 more times and you begin to understand. By the time she was done, the line was out the door again and everyone -- employee and customer -- was giving me dirty looks. She totaled it up: $286.

"That's wrong," said the girl at the other register.

"How can it be wrong? I counted it out."

"Should be $300. Sixty times five is three-hundred," said the guy making the drinks.

"How could that happen?"

"Just keeping swiping till you get to $300," he said.

She started recounting the cards, muttering to herself about how it couldn't be wrong. I was silent, trying to be as invisible and accommodating as possible.

"What are you doing?" said the drink-making guy. "I said just keep swiping till you get $300!"

The downtrodden-looking woman fumbled. Her count had been wrong after all. I handed her three more cards from the display in front of the register.

"Thanks," she said, eyes down.

Then she took my boss's corporate purchasing card, swiped it, and waited.

"This is going to take forever," said the girl at the other register.

We waited and waited and waited.

"The card was declined," said the downtrodden woman.

It felt like I had been expecting this all along, like OF COURSE after the waiting and the dirty looks and the swiping of what felt like millions of cards, after that couple with the mean faces took my seat and the dirty water dripped on me from the leaking ceiling and my stomach felt too gross to get a fancy drink that I could have charged to the company, after this poor woman in a crooked Coffee Bean visor spent fifteen minutes of her life swiping these ridiculous cards for me and an additional ten minutes waiting for it to go through, OF COURSE the card would be declined.

I decided to use my personal card and be reimbursed. I no longer cared about anything anymore except getting the hell out of the Coffee Bean.

Unfortunately, the woman somehow cancelled the transaction.

"I'm going to have to swipe them again," she said.

The guy making drinks looked like he was going to kill her. Then me. She started swiping.

About five cards in, I stopped her. "You know what?" I said. "I'd rather get someone else's corporate card and come back. I'll come back."

"You wanna come back?" she said. I could hear the hopefulness in her voice. "Okay, yeah. I'll put these aside for you. I'll put them aside."

"Okay, thanks."

Then I burst out the door, into my car, back on the road, crying a little bit. I was supposed to go to Barnes and Noble too, and to a paper store to buy thank-you cards, but I just went straight back to work, my insides boiling. I wanted to run five miles or maybe punch someone in the face.

Instead I had a nice long scream. It was good.