Tuesday 29 December 2015

One Afternoon in the Grocery Store

I'm one who eschews the triangular barriers meant to separate my sector of the conveyor belt from yours. As a result, my 30-pack of toilet paper rang through on your tab. "No, no, that's mine," I called, and the correction was made. 
"I thought I didn't recognize that item," you said. "It's toilet paper," I cried. End of episode one.

By the time you showed up again, behind me in the line now, I'd claimed to the cashier, a spike-haired woman named Bonnie, that "I like to buy my vegetables without the bag." I gestured to splashes of water they created on the belt. "Makes me feel more European," I said, a joke.
"Um, what?" Bonnie said. End of episode two, your role confined to silent witness.

Then she rang through your cucumbers on my tab. You and I reacted at the same time. "He's like me," I said to Bonnie. "Doesn't use the barriers." 
Bonnie looked sour. "Do you collect stamps" she asked finally, hoping episode three was almost over. It was. I walked off with a plastic bag of parsley, coriander-cilantro (a combo new to me, as I'd said to Bonnie, episode 1-b), green onion and red pepper, and another bag of corn and butter, and the toilet paper. 

Thirty-three bucks even.

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