Oh, The Bananamanity!

In Country Mart on Thursday, the Young Cashier set my bags on the little shelf there for writing checks. You remember checks, don't you? Those small documents old ladies pull out of their purse at the last moment, when told their total?

Anyhoo... it's not like I was going to use that shelf to write a check. I'm technologically advanced, and use my debit card! Nor am I incapable of reaching over to pick up my bags off the end of the counter. I'm sure Young Cashier thought she was doing me a favor. Until she wasn't.

I had eight bananas. Four long ones for Farmer H, and four short ones for me. She put them in the bag, and set it up on that little shelf. THUD! My bananas, which I had so carefully selected, fell off the little shelf, about 18 inches to the counter.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Well. I hope my husband's bananas hit first, not mine!"

Seriously. Who wants to pay for bruised bananas? Not this old gal. I know Young Cashier didn't do it intentionally. She THOUGHT she was helping me. She was polite and cheerful. When I set out a bottle of the rum I get occasionally for The Pony, she said

"Are you sure you're old enough to buy this?"

"Heh, heh. I am WAY old enough to buy that."

I know it's the law that she's supposed to check ID for liquor sales. She didn't mean anything by it. But to me, it's like when some smarmy salesman calls me "YOUNG LADY." I know I'm old, okay? You don't have to patronize me. No need to treat me differently from any other customer.

I stopped short of shaking my fist at her, which might have dislodged the shawl on my shoulders, and turned around my tennis-ball-footed walker to shuffle away indignantly. Okay, that didn't happen.

I just tried for the third time to make my debit card work, after Young Cashier kindly pointed out that I had been inserting the non-chip end into the scanner...