The Frustrating, But Amiable, Grocer

There is probably nothing more irritating than standing in a grocery check-out line, being in a hurry, and watching as the cashier slowly takes each of a customer's items, passes them through the scanner, one by one, ever so slowly, and in-between each scan, tells the customer a story that said customer really couldn't give two hoots about.

I dare you to find anything so unamusing, frustrating, and homicide-inducing, except perhaps when your husband throws a pair of his used underwear across the room and they land on your head and then he laughs because he thinks he's so farking funny.


I happened upon perhaps the most irritating such cashier last week, on a day when I had both a migraine and a very sore arthritic foot, and I was in a big hurry to get back home, and the last thing I wanted was this guy taking his bloody time with the food scans.

But take his bloody time he did. I should have known when I got into the line, seeing as every other line was three times as long. At first, I thought I had lucked out, there only being two people in front of me. But soon after, I realized that everyone else was simply much smarter than me, because they realized that standing in this line would make them 10 times later than getting into any other line in the entire store.

So, as I neared the cashier, as he served the person before me, I could hear him talking. And he spoke about how exhausted he was, and how he had fallen asleep on the bus, and had ended up way on the other end of the city, and how he had to take another bus all the way back, but that was after he discovered he was actually lost and didn't know where he was, and then he mentioned that he worked two other jobs as well, and that it was time he give at least one of them up, because that's why he was falling asleep on the bus, and maybe it was time he get a car...

Yeah. Real interesting crap.

And then it was my turn at the cash, and as I started piling the groceries into bags, he began talking to me. I tried not to look him in the eye, because I knew that would be construed as an invitation to talk to me even more, and would seem that I actually cared, but it didn't seem to matter, because speak he did.

On and on. And on.

And guess what it was about, folks?

That's right. He talked to me about sleeping on the bus, and how he missed his stop and went all the bloody way to the other side of the damn city, you know, and then he didn't know where he was, bloody hell, and then he had to find his way back, which was awful, and maybe he should drop one or two jobs so that he could get more sleep, because you know, he barely gets any sleep working three jobs, and that's probably why he fell asleep on the bus. And did he mention he was exhausted?

Yes, all that, in one breath.

I still remember his face. And I will make sure to avoid that cash next time I'm there. Even if there's no line-up. Because I'll still be the last one out of the damn store.