I hadn’t been to the Palisades Center in West Nyack in awhile, so I decided to stop by last night.

I was popping in and out of stores, when I headed to JC Penney. I have found some pretty nice bags in there over the years, and their sales are always great.

In other shops in the mall, I had seen what looked like a new style bag — on the small side but with an extra-long strap.

And here I saw one that really caught my eye, a silver-gray “crossbody� bag by Genna de Rossi. It was $50 and 30 percent off.

With a vacation coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought this would be perfect to take along, just throw in a camera, wallet and phone. It would also be great the rest of the year for those quick runs to the grocery store or into the city.

So, I bought the bag.

But when I got home, I glanced at my receipt, which said I had bought two items.

Huh?

I looked — I had paid the $35 (yeah, sale!) for the bag but also .07 — 7 cents — for “Afterschool Donation.�

And at the bottom of the receipt it says “Donations to JC Penney Afterschool Fund are non-refundable.�

Something’s not right…

So I called the store when I got in to work today. It wasn’t open yet but the operator said she’d try to help.

I immediately told her I was calling as a matter of principle, not on the “monetary value� and explained what I was seeing on my receipt.

She said that the cashier should have asked if I wanted to make a donation, but I said she had not.

She also mentioned something about rounding off the sale to the nearest dollar.

I see from the Penney Web site that customers can opt to round up their sale (this drive seems to be running through mid-September) to the next dollar and the difference is considered a donation — but my purse was $35 even, so I would have then ended up paying $36, right?

And honestly, if they had put me down for a $1 or $2 donation — which I may have even considered had I been asked — that would’ve seemed less “fishy� than having a percentage of my sale “grabbed.�

Sure, it’s a measly — .2 — percentage but wouldn’t just a few cents from thousands of customers add up to quite a lot?

Finally, the operator (who was extremely polite and helpful) suggested I come back to the store, speak to a manager and get my 7 cents back.

Not sure I care to do that, but you can be sure I’ll be checking my receipts more carefully.

In this store — and others.