bits and pieces

as the holiday season approaches, i feel like i am going to tear my hair out. the crazies have been out in full force. our store is a bit on the understaffed side, so people....we are getting you out as fast as possible. i know it's 5:30 and you have to cook dinner, but if it's so damn important, buy your dinner wares, then come back and do the big grocery shopping at 8 pm, when there is next to no one in the store. just saying.

and SPEAKING OF CRAZIES....the glove lady was back for round two. and i am ashamed to say that she won i think. FML

she came in saturday and n., c., and i were at the service desk. and of course, being the mature employees that we are, we promptly start sniffling and coughing, which sends her into a tizzy. "DO YOU HAVE COLDS?! I CANT GET SICK MY NEIGHBORS ARE DYING* I NEED A RAINCHECK FOR ICE CREAM!!!" c. managed to convince her that her cold was the least contagious, and starts to write out the raincheck. (ps. the bitch even asked if she could ahve it for multiple flavors. the answer is always NO, lady, one per person!!)) i swear to god, it looked like a light bulb went over n. head, and she bolted to the freezer aisle. and comes back with the exact flavor she claimed we were out of. c. and n. tracked her down in aisle 11. c. then tried to get her to relinquish the raincheck, cause wtf we have the item in stock!!! glovies response? "oh, ill just use it for neopolitan, you didn't have that flavor, either." so n. and c. DUG through the freezer and found a carton of neopolitan. BUT SHE SNUCK OUT THE DOOR BEFORE WE COULD GET IT TO HER. FOILED AGAINNNNNNNNNNNN.

oh. and close talkers. are you EFFIN kidding me with this nonsense? it happens all the time, but today took the cake. i had to put something back on the shelf in the back of the store, so i'm heading back up aisle 12 and i step out, and all of a sudden, there is a lady in my face. when i say she was like an inch from me, i am not even exaggerating. "CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE THE AMERICAN CHEESE FOR BAKING IS?" (whoa lady. quit yelling in my face. and have a tic tac. oof) i respond with (rightful on my part) confusion, saying "...american cheese for baking? like...velveeta?!" and since it is my fault i don't know what she needs for her seemingly white-trash casserole, she was all like "is it in the dairy aisle or what?!" "ma'am, i have no idea what you are talking aboutt. american cheese is in 14..." then she cut me off and said "oh, i need cream cheese". my brain exploded. holy crap.

oh and don't worry. it was me that decided not to run a free turkey promotion, so feel free to shit all over me about it, ladies and gents. i made the flyer and everything! OOF.

happy turkey week. and i AM working on thursday, so i bet i will have a great (hungover) story for you all friday am. xoxo

*(her neighbors are dying? what the hell is this bitch smoking? really??)

let me pose a question to you all...

is it really terrible of me to think of more things to annoy the glove lady with?

because i was thinking of taking an article about antibiotic resistant bacteria and putting it in a plastic bag and including it with her groceries. i can't figure out how to pull it off, but i keep giggling.

oh and i want to steal petri dishes of bacteria that i have cultured.

or just talk about working in a biology lab. with microbes.

ok that's just really really mean, i am sorry.

this is a nice post. really! it is!

let's face it...usually i am nothing more than a snarky bitch who wants to complain about everything. but i was thinking earlier that due to the fact that tomorrow is veterans day, i'm going to discuss the phenomenon called "veteran's wednesday".

when i first started working at the store i work at now, i was warned about something called "veteran's wednesday". it's the time on every wednesday when the bus from the veteran's home in the town comes and brings all the vet's in to buy stuff and, most importantly play the lottery. people were warning me like it was some big, terrible thing. and yeah, when they come, it's busy and of coruse we all grumble about it. however, it's not terrible at all. these guys did a great thing for our country, and they're all great guys, however grumpy they might be. these guys are the only customers that can get away with being surly to me. i swear to god. i have too much respect for veterans to give a shit.

it's always the same guys that come it. there's the guy who lost his legs that buys like a gazillion lottery tickets. he's one of the surlier guys, but lets face it, i would be too. but we've been getting him to smile lately, which makes me feel so much better. there's several other guys too. but my absolute favorite guy that comes in...he's just the best. he's a former Marine who's got a bunch of faded, blurry USMC tattoos on his forearms, and is just the sweetest man alive. he's quiet and softspoken and never has a harsh word for anyone. i just want to hug him all the time. best dudes.

ok so this post didn't turn out as epic as i hoped it would, mostly because i am rushing through it. i guess what i;m trying to say is thank a veteran tomorrow. just sayin.

thank you for your time hahahaha

stupid bitch has made it personal now!

ok. so this has gone on for far too long, so long that i feel it cannot be ignored any longer. i am, of course, talking about the glove lady. she is a local crazy that shops at my store. this woman is constantly causing a scene, and trying to scam us for multiple rainchecks, among other things. she is cuckoo-bananas, absolutely bat-shit crazy. she is one of those insane germaphobes who wears rubber gloves and never lets us touch her items to scan them. she has apparently given people several different reasons as to why she wears these gloves. one of the most recent, and my personal favorite, is that "someone in my building has AIDS and i don't want to catch it. oh and my downstairs neighbor is a stripper." SOMEONE NEEDS TO SET THIS BITCH STRAIGHT ABOUT THE TRANSMISSION OF HIV.

So, a few weeks ago, she tried to weasel 3 rainchecks out of me (each for a separate flavor of ice cream. piss. off. lady. one raincheck per person.). she managed to finagle another one out of D., because glove lady was still in the store when the shift changed. i decided to no longer put up with her bull shit. her bullshit has since spawned such notes as this:


i am so classy at writing notes, i know.

anyway, i've taken to sniffling and developing a hacking cough whenever i see her coming on my line for customer service. haha SO MATURE. so last week, i had an unusually long line at the service desk and i'm plowing through it. i see her then hop on the line, then acutally try to cut in front of people. so i made a big ole production of coughing and sniffling. of course, glovie's disease radar picked right up on it and was she screams (she never speaks. just yells. loudly.) "oh NO are you SICK!?!?!" and i could barely supress my laughter as i replied "oh yeah, i must be coming down with something". her eyes bugged right out of her skull and she pretty much shrieked "OMG I NEED A RAIN CHECK BUT I DONT WANT TO RISK IT!" at this point, i almost lost it . i later learned that she cornered L. and made her write a raincheck because she suspected that i was "highly contagious".

ordinarily, i would not actually make fun of people like this. i mean, she obviously has a problem. but yesterday, this lady stepped over the line, and it became personal.

Glove lady sauntered up to my counter, completely oblivious to the fact that i was helping a customer and tried to interrupt. annoyingggggggggg. so i told her that she had to wait her turn. When this glorious time arrived, she let me know (loudly, of course) that her bread was as hard as a rock and that she was gonna get another one. fine, whatever. she then returned with her bread. and a thing of soup that she wanted to pay for at the desk. but here's the catch. she threw money at me and wouldn't let me touch her soup to ring up. when i tried to take it from her (force of habit i guess), she freaked out and was like "OH NO YOU DONT YOU KNOW I HAVE SENSATIVITIES!" so...i tried to move the (somewhat) broken hand scanner. and it wouldn't ring up her thing. and when i kindly told her she'd have to go to a register cause it wasn't working, she stalked off muttering under her breath. where she met B. from produce. and promptly wasted no time telling that "SHE SHOULDNT OPEN HER MOUTH CAUSE SHE HAS TB. I KNOW CAUSE MY DOCTOR TOLD ME SHE DID"

wait wait wait. i have tuburculosis...and i'm working at stop and shop. yes. yes, thats right. i lost it. 110% lost it. i'm still laughing about it. a lot. jesus christ.

WAIT THATS NOT ALL. the next day, i walk into work, and N. is hysterical. because apparently, glovie came in screaming about how she feels threatened (or something) because our cart guy, S., has TB as well. OMFG GUYS ITS AN EPIDEMIC! QUICK! START HANDING OUT THOSE SARS MASKS AT THE DOOR!

i can't even. like, there must be something in the water around here.

the nicer i am to people, the meaner they are.

so last night, it was disgustingly busy at work. because, apparently a little bit of rain means that the apocalypse is coming and people need to stock up on canned foods for their fall out shelter, and plenty of milk and bread to tide them over. so our power kept flickering and 90% of the people coming into the store were in a foul mood. i, on the otherhand, was not. i was closing with one of my favorite people, N., and nights i close with her are always a laugh.

so amongst the cranky elite was this lady who will be referred to as the wine lady from now on. i had just heated up my dinner, and N. was at the desk helping out these people sending a western union. fine. so the wine lady comes up, and i ask her what she needs help with. and as soon as she opened her mouth, i was like "...". the following is the exchange between the two of us:

Wine Lady: "excuse me but what is your policy regarding things that scan wrong?"
Me: "well what was it that scanned incorrectly?"
WL: (she kind of gave me a withering look, which kind of perplexed me) "well, this bottle of wine is marked 8.99 but it is ringing up at 9.49..."
me: "well, because it is wine, i am only allowed by law to give you back the difference in prices, as opposed to our policy regarding the regular items, which is you would get it for free"
WL: "oh."
Me: "ma'am i just need to see the wine please. thank you"

so at this point i have the bottle in question in my possession. i am filling out the form that's needed for this type of situation, and N. leans over and is like "you know you can only give her the difference right" (cause she had missed my explaination). to which i responded "yeah i already let her know that was the deal". and continued on, ringing up her refund.

Me: "here you go ma'am 54 cents. have a nice day"
WL: "thanks...and WHAT was your name again?"
Me: "...m. why was there a problem?"
WL: "your ATTITUDE was the only problem." while her goofy ass husband laughs in the background.

my jaw dropped. like there was absolutely nothing attitude-y about my exchange with her, i was insanely pleasant. and N. just looks at me with the same expression and goes "what the FUCK just happened? like...how was that even a viable response to you!"

i seriously don't get it. several of my coworkers have said to me that i am acutally TOO nice and people take it as me being all fake nice and what not. what the fuck ever. i am just gonna start being horrible to people. and i mean it. GRRRR see i'm tough and mean! YEAH!

would you like a leech for some bloodletting instead?

so like a week ago, i'm standing at the customer service counter. as always. honestly, i forget who was up there with me, but if they read this then they can back me up on the weirdoness that was this woman. i feel like it was D. but i could be wrong wrong wrong. and this woman with her brood of scarily blonde children comes up to me. and she looks agitated. quite frankly, i assume it had something to do with the fact she was boggled down with the children of the corn, so i decided to be extra nice to her. i mean, its not MY fault she doesn't know the value of a good perscription from her OB/GYN....

regardless. i very nicely ask her how i could help her, and she promply starts complaining that her son got a scrape from something sticking out from the bottom of one of our aisles.. ok fine. thats not good. so i apologize up one side and down the other, asking if she'd like to speak to a manager, asking if she needs anything.

"well. can i have a BAND-AID?"

thinking to myself "theres no need to get snippy with me...", but i replied with "do you want some neosporin too?"

and she's all "obviously."

so i rip a band-aid out of the STERILE band-aid book, grab the neosporin, and hand it to her, still apologizing, god knows why at this point. APPARENTLY this wasn't good enough...because...

"don't you have any band-aids that aren't 50 years old?" and my jaw just dropped. i'm relatively sure that i ever said "WHAT?!"

her response was something along these lines "this band-aid. it's OLD" when in fact, i took it out of a band new box of sterile band-aids. it was the first to be taken out of pack, too. which i showed her. and she then proceeds to ask:

"well, don't you have a first aid kit?" no lady. we actually have a drawer full of first aid items
, but not an actual box labeled "first aid kit" with a big ole red cross on it. which i told her, in less words. she huffed at me, opened the band aid and then calls me back over.

"why is it LIKE this?"

"like what?"

"with these HOLES in it?"

"...seriously? they are so the wound can breathe?"

"i have NEVER seen band-aids with holes in them before. are you SURE you don't have any other ones?" at which point, her oldest, who was obviously the black sheep in the family due to her reddish hair pipes up "MOMMY THE BAND-AIDS AT SCHOOL ALL HAVE HOLES IN THEM!"

and i actually snorted with laughter. i wanted to high-five this little girl. she was my hero. her mom then nastily told her to pipe down, huffed, puffed, and put the band-aid back on her son and walked away.

then i retreated into the cash office where i started laughing so hard i couldn't stop.

seriously. "why are there holes in this band-aid?" jesus effin christ.

another day in paradise, ladies and gents.

OK

sorry, i am so effin busy with school and (lol) work, that i haven't really had a chance to update. however, i have a few things up my sleeve after my exams this week and next are done :)

STAY TUNED!

some general musings...

thank you to the old man who bought me a lottery ticket tonight, you were very nice. however i would've liked a glass of the wine you were buying. hahaha

a big ole screw you to the old man who called me mean. not because i was mean or anything, but because i told you the service desk wasn't a register...i mean, that would've been totally dick of me to kick you out if it was busy, but you walked right up to whoever was on register 3 and payed. go to hell.

hey lady, don't come in at 8:55 and get a cart. you're risking running into the wrath of my friend and i. we'll cut you, cause you SO don't need to be buying a zillion dollars of groceries at that point in the night. you should've planned your weekend better, BITCH!

oh, and why the hell was it so busy today? shouldn't you people be watching football? if you have a TV there's at LEAST 4 games on, so watch em. and get out of my store. cause let's face it. i would be sitting, drinking beer, and watching football, if i didn't have to be at the godforsaken grocery store.

UGHHHHHHHH

today sucked. wahhhhhhhhhh

omfg patience!

i've had this one written out, but i hadn't typed it out or anything. so bear with the "this mornings" and what not.

ok. so. running the front end and manning the customer service counter for as long as i have has given me the fan-flippin-tastic ability to witness some of the most idiotic and impatient people. some of my favorites involve people who don't like to wait in line

• just this morning, out of three regular registers (the other open register was designated as an express lane), i got to see a woman switch lines 6 times. SIX. AS IN ONE MORE THAN FIVE. had she picked one and stayed with it, i am willing to garauntee that she would have flew through the line. i mean, for the love of christ, did she not attend pre-school or something? i mean, one of the first effin things you learn in pre-k is the importance of waiting yr turn. i guess she was absent that day....
• this is sort of in the same vein, but bear with me here. one of the worst things ever is those people that have one single person in front of them, and they roll their eyes and sigh audibly, all while giving me (or whoever is running the front end) nasty-ass looks for the duration of their minute and a half spent on line. even better, is when these people have the balls to ask us to open when its not busy.
• "don't you have any more cashiers?!" "um, i'm sorry, no i do not...?" "what about you, can i pay here?" (side note. this occurs when i am standing at the podium. there is not REGISTER at the podium. am i supposed to conjure one out of thin air?) "ma'am/sir/transvestite, i apologize, but i am not a cashier right now ::winning smile::" i mean. people can clearly see that my station isn't a register, and that i am most likely smack in the middle of paper work, or filling out pickup bags, or like...i don't even know figuring out when to send people on break. all of this be cause theyre is one person in front of them. LOVE ITTTTTTT
• in this vein---my little managers area thing is not a register people. i can't check prices for you, i can't make change for you, and no, you can't pay for your 1/2 pound of sliced roast turkey here either.

also, to the lady who argued with me tonight of 30 cents, you're a twat. you're the one who wanted a more expensive replacement. i didn't tell you to choose that one. fuck off.

Sorry for the delay

*gasp* i've actually had some semblance of a social life. omg!

so i've decided to focus on the lottery lady today. this woman...she has a problem. so i feel slightly bad that i'm subjecting her to a description in my blog. but the other night, i was ready to lose it.

ok. so this lady always comes in with her husband. they grab two carts, and then he does the shopping, while she sits at the machine and plays scratch offs. like...incessantly. it used to be worse, because we used to have the scratch off's behind the counter and she would stand there, and talk and talk and scratch and scratch and it just was terrible. it's still pretty awful, cause she will hand you like, 400 tickets to check, all while subjecting you to this boring, totally stupid diatribe about ANYTHINGGGGGG.

usually i can put up with it. but the other night i just couldn't even take it. she came in at like, 20 minutes before we close. once again, usually i can handle it, but i had to buy groceries. and the only time i get to do it is at the end of my shift. usually, what i do is grab a few things, and run it back to the desk, check if anyones there, then keep shopping. fine. but she was getting almost nasty with me. i'm sorry, but i have shit that needs to be done at the end of my shift in the desk. it's nothing super important, but regardless, it has to get done. and couple that with the fact i had to buy a few things (the severe dearth of slightly healthy food in my house was disgusting), i was just trying to get stuff done. would have been able too, had she not been in there annoying the HELL out of me. and then for her to get nasty (which she almost never does), i was like UGH GET AWAY FROM MEEEEE

thank god that we closed, and she had to go home. lol

there's no such thing as a free lunch

...but there is if you nick it off our shelves!

shoplifters. every kid goes through it, do they not? i mean...what 14 year old girl didn't steal makeup from the local drugstore? but whatever. i'm not talking about the run of the mill, young teenage shoplifters. i'm talking about crazy people who just steal things and return them for money. a TON of people do this. there's the meat lady (who will get her own entry, i assure you. she's that good), the drunk shoplifter, and my personal favorite...the razor guy.

this guy...ok. he's come into the store before, and he creeped me out before i realized his gig. then, one afternoon he bought a pack of cigs from me and left. nooooo big deal. however, i get a phonecall later that night from another of of local stores saying "there's a guy who is trying to return razor blades and we have a very strong suspicion that he stole them. he has no receipt, don't do the return!". so i let my manager know, and she was like "come on m., you know the policy. you have to issue it". so i do. fine.

like, a week later, discussing it with my store manager, as well as the assistant manager (the one who told me i had to do the return), and we came to the conclusion that there are exceptions to the rule. fine. later that night, the guy comes in again. i saw him as i was running to get a price check for a customer, with a basket full of stuff. turns out, he's walking to my desk, and is there when i return. he asks me for the results of the past weekends big lottery, and i give it to him. i promptly walk to the frozen aisle, let my manager know he's in here and maybe she'll want to keep an eye on him. she followed me back to the desk, where i notice him packing up the shit that was in his basket with bags he filched off the registers...and starting to walk out the door. i was like "N. wtf...he didn't pay for annnnny of that!" she followed him out. and threatened to call the cops. OH. and he attempted to steal like 76$ worth of shit, including a bottle of jameson 12 yr. WTF

and hes nasty. like.. wtf. i hate this guy. maybe cause i am full of rage today. hah

no work since monday. life is good, eh?

how do you leave behind groceries?

ok. since i started doing the service desk, part of my responsibility has been to log and put away left behind groceries. this has, and always will, boggle my fucking mind. i understand if you are in a rush, i guess but even then, leaving behind a bag of groceries just makes no sense to me. i've had some stellar run-in's with people who were dumb enough to forget stuff.

recently, the front end manager brought up a gigantic bag of groceries. there were like, 4 frozen boxes of vegetables, some rice mixes, a bag of baby carrots, a cucumber, and some other veggie item. my eyes definitely bugged out of my head, due to the sheer size of this left behind. you have to be dumb or blind to forget something of this magnitude. so, i write it down, and just as i'm going to put the frozen stuff back on the shelf, the phone rings. i pick it up, answer accordingly, and all of a sudden i get:

"did i leave a bag of groceries?"
"was it veggies, rice, etc...?"
"YES. UGH"
"oh! it's right here i was just about to put it back on the shelf"
"WHY would you do that?"
"because...it's frozen and needs to go back on the shelf"
"ugh. whatever. its not like i'm coming back for it now anyway"
(right here i paused and thought to myself: 'then what the fuck is the big deal if i put it back on the shelf or not, crazy?')
"well, when you're ready or available to come pick it up, i wrote it down in the book, so just bring your receipt back and we'll gladly replace it for you."
"but i threw out my reciept"
"then jut say you spoke to me. my name's miss m."
"FINE. BYE"

really? i don't get it. you're the idiot who forgot a gigantic bag of groceries. not only that, i'm telling you that there's not going to be any sort of problem getting your groceries back. at all.

just another day in paradise, ladies and gentlemen.

"can i pay for this here?"

originally, my topic for today was going to be about left-behind orders, because they boggle my mind. however, events that transpired last night during my shift forced me to alter my ideas. read on...

ok. so i have been working at the customer service counter since i was 18 years old. i love it. 98% of the time that is. the service counter exists for price checks, lottery, cigarettes, returns, and general complaints (that are usually (somehow) my fault). it's not really a register. yeah. if its busy, i'll take someone, not a big deal. if you have an item or two and you're buying cigs, then yeah, cool by all means. but don't arbitrarily decide that you can't walk the extra 30 feet to the registers because you want to pay for your milk there. odds are, you're going to have to pass the registers anyway, due to the fact you probably parked on that side of the store.

now. i've had people actually force items on me. but last night may have taken the cake. so it's busy at my desk, but not on the actual registers. this man comes up with hi two kids, and an armful of stuff. oh. and i'm in the middle of my dinner (we don't actually get breaks. hmph). the transaction went as follows:

Man: can i pay for this here?

Me: Sir, this really isn't a register, and there are people waiting for cigarettes and lottery behind you...

Man: well. fine. what if i buy a lottery ticket? will you let me pay for it then?

Me (deciding its probably not worth even trying to argue with this jackass): uh. fine. whatever. do you have your card?

Man: No. slide one for me. man, that was easy, you're quite the pushover. haha

Me: *supersarcastically* Yeah. i'm SUCHHHH a pushover. i just didn't want to argue with you. your total is $15.79.

Man (goes to hand me a credit card.): here.

Me: you have to slide it...ok hit the yes button please. Sign Here please. What kind of lotter ticket did you want?

Man: oh none. that was just so i could pay here so i didnt have to wait on line. (walks away)

ARE YOU SERIOUS?! how do i attract these people? what a douchebag. i almost lost it and followed him out of the store. what kind of person is that much of an asshole?

good news. i'm off for the rest of the week, minivacation this weekend. but dont you worry. i have some general rantings to let loose on you, my adoring readers.

ps-i would like to thank kimmy for coming up with the name of this blog. she rules<3

the beginning

alright. i was kind of inspired by my mom's idea that i should write a book about my (mis)adventures working in grocery stores for what seems to be the last 8 or so years of my life. (i say 'or so', because there actually was a gap from when i was 19-almost 21 where i worked as a hostess at a cheap-o steakhouse chain. but that's a whole other barrel of monkeys.)

while i understand that my foray into the world of supermarket chains is only a means to an end (i graduate in january. fucking FINALLY.), they have inevitably been a big part of my life since i was approximately 15 years old. and that means that the incredible idiots, assholes, and occasional nice person have been part of my life as well. i intend to document the final months of my supermarket career here in this fantastic blog. get used to lots of bitching and snarkyness, some bad jokes, and incredibly foul language.

you have been warned.