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!