“You’re Too Young to Know About Taxes, Young Man”
Do you know what’s absolutely horrendous about shopping in the US? The fact that the price tags don’t include VAT. Nobody wants to manually calculate how much they have to actually spend at the cash register! Why don’t supermarkets just write the real price on the price tag rather than force us to guesstimate?
The OP, who was a child at the time, had no concept of taxes. By the time they wanted to pay for their giant ice cream, they learned a valuable lesson about VAT. Thankfully, a kindhearted woman waiting behind the OP offered to pay for their giant ice cream.