A penny spent...
People who meet me now find it very hard to believe that as a child I was both very fat and extremely stupid (whereas now I am dashingly svelt and a genius).

A 5-year-old me once wandered through the various stalls at my primary school's annual charity bazaar, looking for some new piece of cheap tat from someone else's garage to purchase. Not really understanding money at all I picked up a suitably bright coloured lump of plastic and paid for it with my 50p piece - how amazed was when the nice lady gave me a whole 10p back - to keep!!

Rejoicing at having worked out how the money thing worked I went from stall to stall buying every cupcake, half-scrawled colouring book and and dubiously stained teddy bear I could find. I figured that if I kept giving my money to the assembled teachers and parents, they would continue to hand me money back.

I was baffled when, half an hour later, I had a plastic bag full of landfill and no money.

The evil biddies running the show had decided not to point out my error, thereby making a tramp of me at 5. Capitalist whores.
(EastAnglianswine can see your willy, Sun 3 Aug 2008, 17:22, 2 replies)

Explanation:
I didn't realise that change due is always less than amount tendered, due to the fact that the cost of the item purchased is always deducted.

You probably didn't get it because it really is that phenomenally stupid of me.
(EastAnglianswine can see your willy, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 15:11, closed)