The Devil's Manservant

Just when you thought you were safe from another rant about The Devil's Handmaidens...

Town was crazy yesterday. CRAZY!. I should know better than to get out on the Friday before a holiday, especially when that Friday is also the last day of the month! People are taking the day off from work! Planning for their Labor Day Monday! Flush with cash from their benefits checks arriving ON FRIDAY, since the 1st falls on a weekend.

Yeah. Traffic was crazy. The post office was crazy. The credit union was crazy. The bank was perhaps craziest. And The Devil's Playground had to bring in extra crazy.

That poor counter dude at the post office was getting reamed by some guy whose package from Amazon had been sent back several times. Counter Dude tried to explain that it couldn't be sent to a non-existent address, but the complainer kept complaining that he'd already called about this, and did what he was told, and now he had to go BACK HOME and do it all again. Sounded like he wanted his shipping money back, and that the problem was with the address he was trying receive his package. As much as I felt sorry for Counter Dude, I'm pretty sure the fault was with the post office, and what they told him his address was.

The credit union had a new guy working. So of course he doesn't recognize me on sight, and know that I'm legit, taking cash out of The Pony's college account (my name is on it also). That's not my issue with him. My issue with him is that when he bothered to ask what bills I wanted it in, and I told him, he came back to count out a pile of 50s. Which was neither of the two denominations I'd requested. I took them anyway, since people were waiting, and put them in the bank.

See, I had planned on putting some in the bank to cover the cost of the e-checks I did for The Pony's interim housing costs from summer to fall, while keeping part of it as our weekly cash, replacing the check I'd written him for his own monthly allowance. Rather than deposit the whole thing, and then withdraw cash from the ATM. Which is what I ended up doing. Because nobody likes 50-dollar bills.

SWEET GUMMI MARY! The Devil's Playground was extra Not-Heavenish on Friday! The parking lot was almost full. I could barely navigate the aisles with my cart/walker, due to so many EMPLOYEES SHOPPING! Uh huh. That new Drive Up Service is a pain for regular shoppers. Employees designated to compile those orders have big metal carts, with multiple plastic bins on them, which they park in the aisles while gathering groceries. This is surely the beginning of the apopadopalyspe, as Farmer H calls it. People can't even shop for their own groceries!

Anyhoo...now that we're caught up...let me tell you about my freshest Not-Heaven of the day, THE DEVIL'S MANSERVANT!

I suppose The Devil had to call in reinforcements for all the holiday business, because a brand new guy was opening Register 1. I know he was brand new, because Register 1 is surely Not-Heaven within Not-Heaven. It has to serve the most customers, because they come to it first, and get in line. I saw The Devil's Manservant fiddling, but his light was off, so I thought he might be closing. NO! He turned it on, and came around to say he could help me. You can bet I hustled my cart/walker over there forthwith from Register 2.

I didn't have all that much, really, but the self-checkers (the opposite of the Drive Up Shoppers) were lined up six deep. Not that I would have deigned to scan my own merchandise, mind you. Here's the order. Let the record show that The Devil was out of Chicken Bacon Ranch Pinwheels, the main reason I stopped there. I had four bananas, three cans of white meat chicken, a bag of frozen peas, a carton of chicken broth, a jar of Alfredo sauce, two packs of Hawaiian Rolls (regular, and sandwich length), and a small container of slaw.

The Devil's Manservant clunked my items into the bags, and spun the bag carousel clockwise! That meant I couldn't reach my bags. Had he spun it counterclockwise, I could have lifted them out as he spun it to fill the next bag.

THEN he told me my total, and went around and put my bags in the cart. You might think that's a nice thing for him to do, but I'm never sure I get all my bags like that. AND the chip reader thingy froze on DON'T REMOVE CARD. I couldn't get the screen to put in my PIN. I told him there was something wrong, and he said, "I have to hit a button." Well then. I suggest you spin your carousel the normal way, and stay at the register so you can do just that!!!

THE REAL ISSUE was the way he bagged. The two packs of Hawaiian rolls together in a bag, but turned different ways to make the bag not very pickupable. The bananas on top of the peas on top of the slaw. I prefer bananas alone, so the corners of packages don't bruise them. AND he put the three cans of chicken in with the Alfredo sauce and chicken broth. In fact, he ripped the first bag, so wrapped it around the chicken broth before sticking it in with the other stuff.

Seriously. These young guys need to understand their customers' capabilities. Old ladies don't want every heavy item in the same bag. And for cryin' out loud, SWEET GUMMI MARY, those heavy bags need to be at least DOUBLE BAGGED!

As Farmer H pointed out the other day (and he's not even a regular denizen of The Devil's Playground), "I'd hate to think about the items those shopper workers would choose for my list!" Seriously. It would be like when I took The Pony shopping with me, and everything he brought back had a rip, a crushed corner, a dent, or a torn label.

I suppose the silver lining of this dark shopping cloud is knowing that even if The Pony doesn't land a chemical engineer job right off...his talents can be used to earn minimum wage as a Devil's Shopper.