A couple of years ago I gave you all an inside look into training day at the Kroger by my house. I mistakenly thought that the practice of hiring wacko grocery store workers was specific to this Kroger location. Now I know that not only are their “Kroger Krazies” at other locations, there are weirdos at other grocery stores too, like Publix. The whole thing reminds me of this exchange from the movie “Reality Bites.”
Lelaina’s Mom: Why don't you get a job at the BurgerRama? They'll hire you! My Lord, I saw on the TV - they had this little retarded boy working the register.
Lelaina: Because I'm not retarded, Mom. I was the valedictorian of my University!
Lelaina’s dad: Well you don’t have to put that on your application.
I think these grocery stores have some sort of crazy quota to fill. Here is my latest encounter that took place at a Kroger about two miles away from my house:
I go to check out and the manager is my cashier. He engages me in what starts out to be a normal conversation about Christmas. He asks if Leo is excited, etc. He then starts telling me about some of the Christmas traditions in his family, how his kid really likes He-Man and how excited he was one year to get this He-Man toy. Blah blah blah, it’s a long story about how they surprised him. I guess I acted too interested because…
After I paid and all my bags were loaded and I was about to leave (impatient two-year-old in cart, mind you), the manager launches into another tale of Christmas past, this one about how one year they played a trick on the poor kid and got him a Pippy Longstocking doll for Christmas. Blah blah blah, I just stare at him in shock because 1). this just sounds cruel and 2). I can’t believe he’s still talking to me when I’m DONE checking out. That’s not how this relationship works! I am okay with cashier-customer small talk while I have to wait for you to ring up/bag my groceries. But I am not okay with having to listen to your stories beyond that. That’s a universal understanding, right?
Now the whole time this is going on there’s this deceptively-normal-looking bagger loading my groceries. But while I’m listening to the He-Man story, this bagger is muttering angrily to himself. He then looks up and offers to take my bags out to my car. Normally I would refuse but the problem was, he had loaded them into a new shopping cart and I had Leo in the original cart. So my choices were:
1. Remove two-year-old from cart and wrestle him into a new cart against his will
2. Let muttering psycho-path push the cart full of groceries out to the car.
I chose the latter which was a mistake. As we walk out to the car, the mutterer stops muttering and talks out loud to me: “Have you seen any good movies lately?” to which I reply no, hoping to end the conversation.
He then goes into a monologue about his hatred for Harry Potter: “To me, all it is is a cross between Lord of the Rings and The Brady Bunch! I’m serious! I tell my mom that all the time.” (He’s like 45, by the way, so I’m pretty sure he lives in the basement of his mom’s house.)
When he gets to the part about “And the author, she doesn’t even believe in Jesus!” I knew I should have chosen to wrestle Leo into the other cart. As he loads the groceries he goes back to angry muttering, this time I caught a few utterances of “Harry Potter” and “Jesus.” While talking to him was scary, listening to his maddening muttering was even scarier! I kind of can’t believe the too-long-storyteller manager even let him walk me out to my car.
I later talked to a friend who I had bumped into at that Kroger that day and asked if she knew muttering man. “Oh yes,” she said. “Don’t get him started about movies. He’s like Rain Man about them.” Hey, for the record, I didn’t start it!
And in other grocery-store-crazy updates, this one comes from a friend who had a run-in at Publix. Let this be a lesson to you: When they ask, “Did you find everything okay?” just say “YES.”
“Did you find everything okay?”
”Actually, I couldn’t find those pasta shells made by Ronzini.”
”Huh?”
“And I couldn’t find the Publix brand one either. I guess you’re all out. It’s no big deal. I’m just going to have to go to Kroger.”
“What were you looking for? Pasta?”
“Yes, those big pasta shells. It’s okay.”
“Pasta?”
“Yes, but you were out. I’ll just go somewhere else.”
“What was the brand you were looking for?”
“Nevermind. They weren’t there.”
“Shells?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Pasta?”
“Yes, but that’s okay.”
“You like pasta?”
And so on and so on…
Then the poor girl had to go to Kroger too. That’s just too many Krazies for one day.
2 comments:
Wow, I never thought I would prefer to wrestle a 2 year old into a shopping cart! But there you go.
The cashiers at Walgreen's are also a special kind of Wacky!
I just had an encounter with a Walgreen's cashier. She told me about how she had quit smoking and continued to tell me after I was done checking out. I was in a hurry so turned to go and said, "good for you!" but she kept talking...and talking...and talking.
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