Stop Judging Me!
In the past, I have worked in crappy customer service jobs ringing up purchases. And like most people who get to spend all day ringing people up, I got very bored. I used to entertain myself by examining the items that folks would buy, and try to figure out what was going on in their lives.
For instance, if a customer was buying hot dogs, buns, condiments and charcoal, I would think to myself, “That lady is going to have a barbecue.” If they were buying ice cream, candy, and diet soda I might think, “Who the hell does that guy think he’s fooling?” And if they were purchasing duct tape, plastic sheeting, a hacksaw and lye, I would think, “I should assure this gentleman that my memory is terrible, and that I have already forgotten ever seeing him. And then run away.”
Because of this I always assume that the people that ring me up are doing the same thing. Which has, on occasion, made me feel bizarrely self-conscious about the things that I am buying.
Just the other day I found myself in need of a trip to the store. I only needed a few things, and here’s how it went for me.
First I go by the pharmacy. As much as I enjoy my children I don’t think that I want any more any time soon. And so I grabbed a box of condoms. Because I am both thrifty and delusionally optimistic, I grabbed the largest box they had.
Next, I went to the grocery section. Cooking dinner is now usually my responsibility and I find that it tastes better if I can separate it from the pan. And so I got a can of butter flavored Pam.
And lastly, I have two teething babies in my care. Which means that they cry like an American Family Association spokesman at a midnight screening of Brokeback Mountain. Just without the secret boner. And thus I added a bottle of infant Motrin.
Shortly thereafter I was dropping my selection onto the conveyor belt, when the paranoia began to kick in. Individually my purchases seemed benign and innocent. But what did they say when they were combined together? And more importantly, what was the cashier assuming about me because of them?
Condoms are fairly straightforward. There aren’t very many uses for them other than the standard one. But condoms and Pam together?
“My gods!” I thought to myself, “The clerk probably thinks I am going to use the Pam as some sort of personal lubricant. She must think I am some sort of food pervert.”
And then the last item rolled up, like tiny white plastic accusation. The infant Motrin.
What was the clerk thinking? What awful scenario was unfolding in her mind?
I tried looking at her face to see if I could glean some hint of what was going on in her head. She just looked bored and disinterested. Hah! Clearly this was the kind of bored and disinterested look that you get only when you are making a terrible moral judgment on another. She couldn’t fool me!
She has obviously put all of these items together into some sort of macabre scene where I needed to practice safe sex while hosing something down with lubricant. Something that would require pain-killers. For children. It was like she was reading the opening lines to the world’s most horrible Penthouse letter ever.
I began to feel a near overwhelming urge to defend myself. I needed to explain that each of these items was intended for a separate function and that I was not some sort of deranged and abusive Pam fetishist.
It did occur to me just as I was about to open my mouth that this would probably not help my cause in any way. In fact, this is precisely the sort of thing that sane people almost never blurt out as they pay for their groceries.
Which is how I narrowly avoided convincing the nice people at Target that I was on my way home to commit some savage act of butter flavored atrocity.
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July 7th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Personally, I think if you’d added a bottle of bourbon, a cashier would have looked at your purchases, looked at you and said “Teething kids, huh?”
The pam would obviously be for sniffing to get high to ignore the screams. The bourbon would be to make you forget the taste of buttery pam in your nasal cavities.
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RivCA reply on July 9th, 2010 5:36 am:
Just one slight problem on the bourbon: Target, at best, has a liquor license to sell wines. I’ve seen beer paraphernalia during my personal tenure at the Bull’s Eye, but never actual beer.
Still, if box wine is your flavor, be my guest.
Captcha: the accusing. Her look was far from it, but that just means she has a good poker face.
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July 8th, 2010 at 6:53 am
Women don’t have this problem as much, because their incriminating items would have been hidden among some boneless chicken thighs, two boxes of Cheerios, a bunch of celery, four tomatoes, and a basket of kiwis, all of which were on sale.
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July 8th, 2010 at 8:19 am
I used to work in a grocery store back in high school, and because I had no life, I would typically work late night on the weekends. On probably no less than five occasions, and all with different people I saw a combination of items of cool whip, the cheapest beer you find, and a box of condoms.
And mind you most of these people looked like they just short of having their own meth labs in their garages. But I couldn’t really judge them because, after all, I was the high school kid working a check out line at 11:30 on a Saturday night.
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July 8th, 2010 at 8:53 am
My daughter had trouble with constipation a few years ago and realizing I had forgotten to pick-up the suppositories at the drug store I ran out one evening. While there I saw some ice cream on sale and only after getting into the check-out line worried what the cashier would make of a box of suppositories, a tube of KY jelly and two pints of premium ice cream.
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July 8th, 2010 at 11:59 am
lol, it happens to everyone. I think my worst was a box of tampons, a pint of Dove ice cream, a container of strawberries, a roll of duct tape and a knife sharpener. I could just see the cashier going, “don’t piss her off, don’t piss her off, don’t piss her off.”
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July 8th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I had a similar experience when I bought a bunch of sausages and some razor blades.
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July 8th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
My personal best was K-Y and Odor Eaters.
Although one friend of mine got some serious difficulty – they had a pregnancy test and a pack of wire hangers.
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LT Ronald reply on July 13th, 2010 11:39 am:
You forgot a pack of cigarette lighters, you gotta sterilize them hangers first!
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July 8th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I think my favorite combo I had while I was a cashier at school was a woman that bought Vaseline, condoms, a sleeping mask and an electric toothbrush. I couldn’t help myself. I heard someone with my voice ask her “Fun night planned?”
She turned completely white, then red and rushed out of the store w/out her keys. I’m pretty sure if she had left anything else she would have never come back.
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July 8th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Sleep deprivation at its finest.
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July 8th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
THIS! Is why I buy condoms with no other items…. LOL!!!
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July 8th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I was building a set of survival cans and first aid bags for 2 new troops. Tampons, large feminine pads(with wings),extra large unlubed condoms, utility knife blades, rubber tubing, super glue, disposable baby bottle bags, large 4 mil black trash bags, a role of jute cord, hack saw blades, cotton makeup pads, gorilla tape, a pack of replacement bbq strikkers and vasoline. the teanager at wallmart was boggled. (yes I was in uniform).jaf
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July 8th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I like having a theme.
Once I discovered everything in my basket started with the letter b. I had bread, beer, bananas, and butter.
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July 8th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
That’s the fun of going shopping. If you’re fortunate, you can find combinations that put you on some kind of watch list.
I’m sure that I’m on several.
captcha: Presidents toiling (bullshit)
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July 9th, 2010 at 12:56 am
A while back I was working the night shift of my main job, and working as a referee at a paintball field on the weekends. So I usually stayed up all night on friday to get to the field early enough on saturday, usually with a run to the 24 hour walmart for supplies. One weekend we needed to fix some of the fields outer boundary, hang a few banners that kept getting blown off by the wind, keep a canopy from getting blown over, and get rid of some burning nettles that had over grown part of the field.
So there I was at walmart at 4am buying 50 feet of rope, a roll of duct tape, 4 bricks, and a machete.
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oneluckyduck reply on August 26th, 2010 11:45 pm:
Waitwaitwait…your Walmart sells MACHETES?
You lucky *bleep*
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July 9th, 2010 at 1:18 am
My buddies and I in high school used to play a game at the local grocery store. We’d sit outside the big glass windows behind the row of registers and go in one at a time to buy things. But not ordinary things. The sole intent of these purchases was to see who could get the worst looks from the people bagging the groceries, which was usually some poor 16 year old girl who had no idea what she was in for.
Anyway, long story short, my one buddy has the title for buying, in one purchase, 2 items.
A pregnancy test.
And a package of wire coat hangers.
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LT Ronald reply on July 13th, 2010 11:42 am:
Again, need the cigarette lighter to sterilize the coat hangers. You want her to get an infection?
Captcha: Preteens agreement, damn! just damn!
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July 9th, 2010 at 11:12 am
4 15 year old boys, each buying 4 packs of condoms. One at a time, slowly, nervously. One bought his with chocolate whipped cream (arguably one of the best inventions and history). The next with a hair straightener. The next with laxatives. The next with a cucumber.
After this, a 15 year old girl bought a pregnancy test and a wire coat hanger.
And we got it on film.
Now, what to do with 16 boxes of condoms in high school…
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July 9th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Midol, a tarp, and a roll of duct tape.
Captcha: taliban have
Have what?
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July 12th, 2010 at 11:51 am
hacksaw, garbage bags and a baby rattle. We use to come up with these lists while in the field bored out of our minds.
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July 12th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
My wife lets me buy the condoms, but she no longer sends me to the store for anything else at the same time after the one time she sent me to the store for an emergency replacement Halloween costume for our younger daughter.
I came home with a Dorothy costume, Youth-Large, and a box of condoms (Her Pleasure).
Apparantly I wasn’t very discrete about the purchase (what do I care if anyone sees me buy condoms?). She got a phone call from a friend of hers asking if everything was “okay” before I even got home from the store.
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July 14th, 2010 at 5:28 am
Apparently, NOT just you. ;)
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/05/things-that-can-make-you-feel-like.html
Captcha: “counted an” . . . an . . . what? “counted an obscene number of people laughing?”
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July 19th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Dog collar, black electrical tape (small wrists), extra large condoms, and a baseball bat. I didn’t do it!
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October 14th, 2010 at 1:50 am
This is giving me all sorts of ideas on what to do in teh middle of the night when I’m, bored.
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