Just a lowly cashier complaining about the unknowing irritation you cause by everyday purchasing transactions.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Strawberries, Whipped Cream, and Paintbrush Skewers?

Yesterday's Quit-O-Meter: 7 (a four hour shift followed by two days off, it wasn't too bad) 


At least once a day I get a customer who pulls out some items from their pocket or purse at the last minute and hands it to me to scan.  Sometimes we have already finished the transaction and the items in their pockets are a last minute remembrance.  It makes me wonder, how many times do customers not remember that they've pocketed things?  And how is it that no one from the Walmart security room didn't deploy someone from the roof to tackle the lady in the lipstick aisle to the ground once she slipped the item away?  It must be really simple to steal things from our store.  


But as a customer, why would you think it would be okay to put things that you haven't purchased away in your purse or pocket?  It always is the women who put things like lipsticks and other cosmetics in their pockets.  I've never had a man who's nearly forgotten to pay for anything so it must be a woman thing.  It really bothers me though because I have to fight the urge to say, "What if you had forgotten to give this to me?!  THIEF!!!"


During my last hour I was put on re-shop which brought me into the line of fire of a million questioning customers.  Where's the satin sheets? (Ew.)  Where's the cookie cutters?  Where's your skewers? 


I easily found the skewers but we were out of the bamboo ones that the woman wanted to impale her box of fruit upon.  She didn't want to use metal skewers and she asked me if I had any ideas (????).  I thought of a few stupid things: straws, toothpicks, ... dowel rods?!  She had no idea what a dowel rod was so I took her over to the craft aisle.  While a skinny dowel rod would have worked fine, unfortunately we only carried a multipack of different sizes.  We stood there staring at the dowel rods and pipe cleaners until she reached toward a pack of paintbrushes.  Yes, plastic, multicolored, kid-friendly paintbrushes.  After considering them for a moment she put them in her cart and said, "Well, at least it'll be the joke at the table."  We had a good laugh at the idea but I cannot believe that ultimately she walked away planning to skewer fruit on paintbrushes.  How romantic. The sheer ridiculousness still makes me giggle to think of it. 


Valentine's Day means lots of customers buying strawberries, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, boxes of fake rose petals, candles and boxes of candy.  It grosses me out when they buy these combinations of items because I don't want to think what they are going to be used for.  Oddly enough, no one bought condoms or lube... ?  It truly surprises me how many women feel comfortable enough to put their sexy underpants on the register checkout belt that has smears of questionable things on it (could be chicken juice, fabric softener, milk stains...).  At least put it on top of one of the items!  Yuck! 


Speaking of piling clothing, one of my huge pet peeves involves the customer bringing up a wad of clothing and piling them on the register belt.  It takes me twice as long sorting through a collision of clothing that resembles the dumped out contents of a laundry hamper.  And if it's messy on the belt, I'm going to throw that shit in your bag in a tangled and wrinkly mess not unlike the one you unloaded on me. 


And the Roundhouse Kick to the Face Award of the week goes to: the woman who asked me where "stuff for your lawn would be" and didn't realize that such things would be in... LAWN & GARDEN!  


*The "Roundhouse Kick to the Face Award" goes to the dumbest customers with the most obvious and ridiculous questions (there might even be multiple winners).  This award is sponsored by my Mom who loves the phrase "roundhouse kick." 

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