Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.

As previously stated, I work at a Supermarket, it happens to be called Adams, after the CEO of the Bozzuto’s company, it’s supplier. Adams is a hellhole, the majority of the people who work there who are still sane will tell you the same thing. Those who have succumbed to the horrible monotony and repetitive work will respond to your questions with the words “Paper or Plastic?” and once you leave, will chime in with “Thank you shopping at Adams, have a nice day!” once you leave their zombie-like presence.

Now that we have the formalities out of the way, I’m going to introduce everyone to what is going to be a reoccurring story here at my blog, horror stories about the various crazies that I’m forced to bend over for when they come into my god forsaken line. Not all of them will be frightening however, some of these people are the makings of some excellent comedy.

Today’s story shall be one relevance. In my previous post, Sequels, and Why they Suck, I discussed the proposed Forrest Gump sequel. Well, about a month ago, I was at work, attempting in vain to slit my own wrists with the edge of my name tag when a guy, seemed about mid-20s appeared in my line. Quickly hiding my self-mutilation attempt, I gave the guy the infamous “guy nod” to recognize his presence and began ringing up his groceries. After I was done with his stuff, he attempted to slide his credit card, unsuccessfully. I showed him the proper way, and with a grateful smile, uttered the words, “Thank you.” in a voice that could have been mistaken for Tom Hanks himself as Forrest Gump. Stifling laughter, I gave him his receipt. He stood, looking rather out of place and confused, at the end of my register. He was waiting for someone, a little girl who ran through my line shortly afterward. I though nothing of it until they were almost out the door, when I heard him yell, in the same Gump-esque manner, “What took you so long, Jenny?!?”

I work at a Supermarket, yea paper or plastic, I know. I am forced to deal with more seniors that I would like to meet in my lifetime. Apparently, my place of employment not only sells groceries, but hosts some sort of bingo or shuffleboard contest when I’m not looking, because the place is overrun. For those that know me well (and some that don’t) my lack of fondness for the elderly is well documented. Yes, by saying elderly I am generalizing, what do you want from me. Possibly, because my section of the good ole’ US of A is slightly less tech-savvy than say, Silicon Valley, but whatever the case may be, it never ceases to confound me how a thing so simple as a credit car scanner, can boggle and confuse these people. I cannot begin to count the times I have had to guide them step-by-step through the process of sliding a credit card through the thing in the correct manner, (black strip first, people). The thing that bothers me most however, is that the same people come through on a semi-daily basis and still can’t catch on to this simple object that has been there for years, yet when I “smash” their whole grain, low fat, low sodium, pseudo-bread, they have no trouble remembering my name from the whole 30 seconds of contact they had with me ringing out their stuff. To me it is more of a refusal to change or to adapt than any sort of lack in mental ability. Me thinks the proverb should go, “You can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the dog doesn’t take a dump on the carpet in retribution for trying to teach them how to play dead.”

My thoughts for the day.