#Friday Reflections: Thanks for the Memories

       When I was 19 years old I got my first job as a cashier at Maurek’s IGA, a locally owned and operated grocery store.  I was paid minimum wage, which was a measly $3.35 an hour at the time.   Every week I would cash my paycheck and sit on the living room floor and count my money much like Scrooge Mc Duck.  It was my money, I hoarded it, and I loved it!

 

        I learned in a quick hurry how rude some people could be.  The bitch of it was that you weren’t allowed to be rude back.  No matter what, the customer was ALWAYS right.    Thinking back, working the express lane could really be a blessing or a curse depending on the day.  The whole point of the express lane is to allow customers with 10 items or less a speedier option than waiting forever behind folks with carts heaping with groceries.  Obviously it was a blessing not to be required to bag tons of groceries.  It wasn’t a guarantee though.  You could always count on that one asshole that ignored the ten items or less sign and pushed their grocery cart heaping full of everything from soup to nuts into your lane.  You weren’t allowed to remind them that it was an express lane.  All you could do was deal with it while everyone in line behind them grew increasingly more pissed with every item you scanned.

           If that wasn’t bad enough, that particular asshole escalated to a whole new level of asshole when they whipped out a huge wad of expired coupons and then realized…oh shit…I don’t have any money.   No, those three crumpled dollar bills you have there with the handful of change and mountain of expired coupons, isn’t going to cut it!!  WTF!!  Being just a cashier I wasn’t authorized to void anything so when disaster struck and Mrs. I Don’t Have Enough Money showed up the stress level tripled as you tried usually unsuccessfully to grab a head cashier in a quick hurry to sort the situation out.  Once that was sorted,  Mrs. I Don’t Have Any Money took off everything she couldn’t afford and  left happy as a clam with her pack of cigarettes. 

  Grrrr!

      Let us not forget the folks that showed up and bought random stuff and refused a bag and were just plain hilarious.  Like this lady who came through with a bag full of fresh tomatoes, a douche, hemorrhoid cream, and a package of condoms.

    “Oh no. I don’t need a bag.  I got this.”

  Seriously??

       Of course that was back in the day when I would have been MORTIFIED to be buying a douche, condoms, or hemorrhoid cream, let alone all three in one stop.    The beauty of the passage of time though is that the older you get, the less you care.  I could totally waltz into a store now and throw a douche, a pack of condoms, and hemorrhoid cream at the cashier and pay for it like a boss.  Hey, I believe in being fresh, tending to the UFO growing on my ass, and in safe sex.  However, I am not insane.   I  have standards.   I expect a bag!!   Thank you very much!
 

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