CV Cee: Funky Tales — Part I

Some stores you just don’t visit after 5 p.m. These are the stores where lines snake from front to back, customers balefully eyeing the two frazzled and frowning cashiers whose fingers can’t keep up with the steady flow of customers. MC is one of those stores.

So, being quite the aficionado of timing my shopping, I saunter into MC one morning feeling good that I’d picked a time when customers were outnumbered by sales staff 15:1.

Approaching the queue, I’m even more elated to see that I’m second in line. As any regular visitor to MC will attest, being second in line at that joint is tantamount to being given a parking receipt with an hour left on it.

As I enter the queue my nostrils are assaulted. I find myself walking through a funk cloud so odoriferous my eyes water.

“Damn! Someone needs to lay off the fried foods,” I think.

Thankfully, a few hasty steps and I’m on the other side.

The requisite two cashiers are busy: the one closest to the line is obviously going to be tied up for a while—her customer keeps going into his wallet, pulling out cards and handing them to her.

Cashier number two takes the guy in front of me. She looks to be done pretty quickly: he has only two items on the counter. When you’re in the queue, these details assume enormous importance as they provide clues to how long a wait you have.

This is good. I’ll be outta there in minutes…

What was that odor?

 

I look away, momentarily distracted by the impulse purchase gadgets displayed along the length of the queue.

“Kiss me, I’m a Geek” tee shirts and miniature USB powered flashlight and screwdriver combos catch my attention.

I turn back and discover to my dismay that my cashier, and her customer, are gone.

A minute passes, then three. Two more customers join the queue, then another. More minutes pass. Before I know it, the queue is filled with people all wondering the same thing: what happened to the second cashier?

I’m started to feel gypped—just my luck, my great queue position advantage eroded by an MIA cashier. Shit.

Suddenly, she reappears. A quick word to the security guard, and she’s back on duty. I take my five-dollar telephone cord to the cashier station, which smells cloyingly like Glade Fresh Bouquet.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she says, my minor irritation instantly mollified. “I had to get some spray. I couldn’t let my customers go through that.”

The sales lady had to explain what was going on….

 

Turns out the “that” to which Madame cashier referred was the source of the funk cloud I’d experienced earlier.

“I don’t believe it,” she says, swiping my merchandise. “He passed gas THREE TIMES and never said ‘excuse me’. Just acted like nothing happened! I’m right by the door—you think, after the first one, that he couldn’t have stepped out into the hallway, something!”

“HA!!!” I howled, so loud the security guard’s head whipped around to see what was happening. “That is AWFUL!” I say through the laughter racking my body. “You think he’d of said ‘I’m sorry, or something!”

Tears well in my eyes, I’m laughing so hard.

I finish my transaction, commiserate a bit more, and leave.

I reflect on the indignities—big and small—that cashiers must deal with daily. I’m grateful that my work doesn’t require me to grin and bear it when someone farts repeatedly in my face.

And I am really, really glad that I had to wait in the queue longer than I’d anticipated—that kind of funk is enough to make you—at least temporarily—insane.

Editor’s Note: This is CV Cee’s first post for The Third City. Welcome aboard, CV!

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