You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The bag boy’s overwhelming needs to question my grocery etiquette.
“You want your milk in a bag sir?”
I stare at him.
He’s a punk ass kid with pimples and bad breath. He wears a smock for a living. His collar is stained with his own neck sweat. The poor kid is the answer to the question; Is Birth Control 100-percent effective?
“Yes. Everything in a bag, please. It just makes it easier.”
“Yes sir.”
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The cashier slides butter across the scanner. She slides potato chips over the reader.
“You doing anything fun for the Fourth?,” she says, not looking up.
“Hard to say with all this iffy weather,” I respond.
“Oh is it raining outside?” the young woman says, sliding bagels and ice across the scanner.
“Going to the lake?”
“If the weather holds,” I say again.
“You want the ice in a bag sir?”
I stare at the greasy pizza pie faced bag boy. He is holding the 10 pound bag of ice staring at me.
I feel like grabbing the intercom and screaming “intelligence check in aisle 7
“Remember me? The guy from 4 items ago? The guy who said put everything in a bag it’s easier that way? Yes please put the ice in a bag.
That’s what I want to say.
“Everything in a bag please. Helps me carry it inside.”
“Yes sir,” he says like a Labrador lapping up a puddle of puke.
“Did you find everything OK?” the young woman says sliding across potato chips and pickles and bacon.
“I was looking for those cold packs that you put in your lunch box. Where do you hide those?”
“Oh so sorry sir. That’s aisle 12.”
“OK, I’ll remember that for next time.”
She slides gum across the scanner. I look at the bag boy. I all ready know what he’s going to say. They say it every time. It doesn’t matter that I have already instructed him what to do. It doesn’t matter that he has been given a specific task to adhere to. It doesn’t matter that I feel that I am a very important customer.
I know what’s coming next.
“DO YOU WANT YOUR GUM IN A BAG?”
AARRGGHH!!
I am a volcano of indignation. I roll my eyes like the hunch back of Notre Dame swinging through the rafters. I am casper the unfriendly ghost. I want to lay a good haunting on this bone head.
I stare at him. He is a Mexican hat dance of dumb.
He is looking at me with glazed over zombie eyes. His brain is set to slow boil. His eyes are sunken into his head like a turtle that has been hit by a car on a hot country road.
“No. Please put the gum in a bag too,” I say, measuring my words like a bar tender carefully pouring a shot of Louis the XIII Remy Martin cognac.
He is about to say are you sure you want your gum in the bag?
“Yes,” I say interrupting his future brain fart.
“Please put the gum in the bag. The milk. The ice. The chips. The bread. The eggs. All in a bag. That way I can grab everything by a collective plastic handle and lug it into the house.”
I watch him struggle for a moment deciding which bag to put the gum into.
I laugh to myself.
He has bacon, sausage and chicken in one bag.
He has scouring pads and toothpaste and tin foil in another bag.
Fruit and vegetables in one bag. Milk all by itself.
Where to put a 2 inch pack of gum?
I hear his brain chugging like a 1960’s super computer.
After an excruciating moment, he places the gum in a plastic bag all by itself.
I was a bag boy a million years ago.
I don’t remember asking every customer so many lobotomizing questions? I don’t remember what was so hard about putting butter in a bag.
I slide my card and pay my bill.
“Can I help you out sir?”
“No thanks young man. Thanks to you, everything is in a bag and it will be easy to load.”
“Yes sir,” he says with a smile.
I roll out of the store and shake my head.
I know that next week, I will get this same kid and it will be another round of grocery shopping Deja Vu.
Till then; just bag it.
Life’s Crazy™