Friday, April 12, 2013

Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

I had the sweetest little checker today at The Devil's Playground.

I think she must be new. She has not yet taken up The Devil-ish ways. She bagged all of my food in the order I put it on the conveyor. She gave me the Aldi's price on pork rinds, even though I didn't bring in an ad to beat their price. She placed like items with like items. Rang up my $11 worth of Zyrtec coupons without incident. Complimented me on the plumpness of my mushrooms. And even related a short anecdote concerning the grossest thing she ever touched.

I'm not sure what brought that about. I think, perhaps, I mentioned that usually, the mushrooms look squishy and gross. She coyly sized up the situation. "I'm pretty good at handling gross things. When I was a kid, my family kind of had a contest. Like, what's the grossest thing you ever touched? I must say, I was the winner. See, we lived on a farm. A farm with cows. And when they have calves, there's this mess that needs to be cleaned up. So I picked it up. It was no big deal."

"Oh. We have goats. And our dogs sneak into the pen and do that kind of cleaning up."

Sweetie then proceeded to pick up my plastic container containing a whole baked chicken, and flipped it end over end, trying to unstick that rascally price tag/nutrition information purple sticker that should have wrapped around it, from her hand. Sweet Gummi Mary! I though I had found myself the perfect checker until that moment.

When I got home, the clear warm juice of that fowl filled the bottom of the gray plastic bag. But that's okay. I doubt Farmer H will notice it when he eats the whole chicken and spits out the bones. Seriously. That man ate a whole bag of mixed vegetables in one sitting when left unattended. I shudder to think of the carcass I will find from that chicken.

3 comments:

Chickadee said...

You can always spot a new clerk/cashier a mile away. They are so cheerful and helpful, not at all like the jaded employees that have been chinked away at by the rudeness of customers. That nastiness does have an accumulating effect.

I love the new ones. It's a shame people have reason to develop armor against the world. There's no reason to be nasty.

Sioux Roslawski said...

She must have won (or lost) some kind of contest. "Be a Checker For a Day," or some other new reality show/contest. I've NEVER gotten a cashier like that...

Hillbilly Mom said...

Chick,
She was so bubbly and pleasant, I forgot for a moment where I was.

******
Sioux,
This was a first for me, if you don't count those former students who are happy to see me. Then they probably Facebook about what was in my cart.