Day Thirty Nine

Update: Elvira

I was tremendously drowsy from taking a large dose of Benadryl last night. I didn't have time to make coffee or stop by Starbucks for a latte, so I settled for coffee samples at work. I was looking half dead, waiting for the breakfast blend to kick in when Elvira walked by my register. She stopped in front of me and gave me a funny look.

ELVIRA: Let me take a picture.

She pulled an imaginary camera out of her pocket and held it up to her face to capture the memory of my looking awful. I played along as if it were a zombie photoshoot.

ELVIRA: Smile!

I slackened my jaw.

ELVIRA: Beautiful.

Elvira being sarcastic? That's new. She has been super pleasant to be around lately. I think I am finally on her good side. Maybe she will let me help bag her groceries now.

Egypt

A beautiful (probably eternally youthful) woman with olive skin came into my line. We did the usualy greet and chat about the day. At one point she looked at my name tag.

WOMAN: Miranda. That is the name of one of my cousins in Egypt who I have not seen in 25 years.
ME: You must miss her.
WOMAN: I do.
ME: Well aren't things better in Egypt now? Maybe you can see her!
WOMAN: I wouldn't travel there now. The post-revolution in Egypt is messy.

We talked more about her family in Egypt. I shared my stories about traveling to India to see my family.

ME: Indians are a beautiful people but there are things that still need fixing in that country. Like bride burning.
WOMAN: Tell me about it. In my country if a man's shirt was burned with an iron, someone would die because of it. I thought, 'What is this stupidity?' So I moved to a better place. That was the only solution. We are lucky to live here.

She is right.

New Rules

More new rules? Mad Kathy informed me that when we are not cashiering we are to stand in front of our registers, like at other stores. Yeah, I will not be doing that. Walking in and out of our registers is a pain because two cashiers are in one pod of registers, there is only one small exit space and there are grocery baggers to climb over. That is one too many obstacles to get to the front of my register. I would hate to do this over and over all day only to find out that someone has seen me already and was on his or her way to check out wit me. There are only EIGHT registers. This isn't a super large corporate chain where a customer has 30 cashiers to choose from. If someone wants to buy their groceries, they will not have to travel far to find an open one. If a customer finds himself at a busy line, is in a rush and refuses to make the effort of rotating his head 30 degrees to find an available cashier, it is his fault...

...or maybe I am rationalizing because I am lazy and am apathetic to the new rule. A little of column A, a little of column B.

Sarah Palin

A woman walked into my line who looked EXACTLY like Sarah Palin. I couldn't help myself.


ME: Do people tell you that you look exactly like Sarah Palin?
WOMAN: All of the time. I even had this haircut and hairstyle before she came into the limelight.
ME: I'm kind of sad that you don't sound like her.
WOMAN: Sorry to disappoint you.
ME: I was sad when she didn't run for president because I was hoping to see more Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.
WOMAN: Before everyone said I look like Sarah Palin they all said I look like Tina Fey.
ME: I wish some woman would run for president that looks like Kristen Wiig. That would be some comedy.
WOMAN: But what kind of woman would be good for a presidential run?
ME: I think the kind of woman I would want to vote for as president would not actually make a good presidential candidate. Not at the moment anyway. She would be too good of a person to be in Washington. She would be targeted by all of the backwards people in our country and all of the men who can't stand working for a woman.
WOMAN: She would have to be manipulative, that is for sure.
ME: Sadly enough.

Touchscreen Generation

For months now, I have watched people prod and poke the hell out of our non-touchscreen credit card reader. It is like watching a monkey try to get a banana out of a locked box. These people do everything but smash the card reader into the ground. I decided to fashion a small sign out of receipt paper to help my customers out. The sign read, "This is not an iPhone. Please use the electronic pen (I drew an arrow indicating its location) to make selections on the screen. The green "Yes" button is on the lower right hand side of the reader. DO NOT press the red button unless you want to cancel the transaction. Thank you."

I placed the sign on top of the reader. It helped everyone! For the next few hours, no one had problems with the credit card reader. No one prodded the shit of the non-touchscreen. Miracle of miracles! A couple of my customers and fellow cashiers saw the sign and laughed.

After a few hours, the Infamous Patti came up to me and removed the sign from my credit card reader.

PATTI: What is this? You can't have this up here!

She laughed and handed me the sign back. Silly old-fashioned Patti. This isn't hurting anyone! It's helping. After she left I put the sign back on. Patti came back about an hour later and took it down.

PATTI: Why did you put this back up? Roz told me to take it down and then you put it back up! You're going to get me in trouble! She is going to think that I am not listening to her!
ME: Oh! I didn't know that Roz told you to take it down! I'm sorry!
PATTI: Yes, Roz. Don't get me in trouble!

I felt bad. I liked Patti. I didn't want her to get in any trouble. I threw away the sign and watched as my customers continued to stab my credit card reader and cancel their transactions on accident. So much for clarity.

The Anti-Mexican

A woman came through my line who was checking stickers and labels on each one of her produce items.

WOMAN: Is there any way I can find out which vegetables and fruits do not come from Mexico without having to fish through that entire section? Is there a list anywhere?
ME: I don't think so. I buy mostly organic food. Whatever I buy that isn't organic are foods that no matter how or where they are grown, they are least likely to have a high amount of pesticide or chemical residues like asparagus, bananas or avocados. They can come from Mexico.
WOMAN: Organic food is too expensive and I'm not buying anything from Mexico.

I bit my tongue and decided not to waste my breath on this woman any longer. She bought her non-Mexican groceries and left.

Pesticides are everywhere, in every country. Some of the more dangerous pesticide-laden fruits and veggies to buy in conventional form are only dangerous to buy from Mexico because, in summary: Some forms of pesticide that were once available in the US became illegal for use here because its poisonous carcinogenic residues remained on plants well into the post rinse. What did the pesticide companies do? Export the pesticide to foreign countries like Mexico. Then what do American grocers do? Import  fruits and vegetables from the very farms that bought our outlawed pesticides! How fucked up is that?

Again, this doesn't make ALL conventional fruits and veggies from Mexico potentially dangerous for consumption as I don't know which farmers in Mexico are growing their fruits and vegetables responsibly. The same damn thing could be said for farmers in America! I have read up on the 'conventional vs. organic' food topic quite a bit. What is safe? Buying organic forms of conventional fruits and veggies that tend to be high in pesticide residues like strawberries, apples, spinach and potatoes. Buy conventional  forms of fruits and veggies that don't absorb the pesticides as much like asparagus, bananas, avocados and Brussels sprouts. There are LOADS sources on this topic that draw the same conclusion about produce that the anti-Mexican woman is apparently unwilling to search for or read. I shake my head.

Of course organic food is expensive. It is cheaper than ever because it is the fastest growing sector of the food market. All sorts of large food corporations are jumping on this band wagon. There are honest farmers out there that do grow their food responsibly but they can't afford the USDA organic label. Unfortunately, producing and selling organic food  in America is costly. This is because integrity is not an industry standard. Money is in charge to the point of being a god. There are some extremely powerful people in charge of the food industry, in charge of many underpaid farmers, who are driven by multi-millions of dollars and they don't give a damn about who is ingesting what carcinogen. Then there is the GMO debate. Ugh. Read and watch documentaries about the food industry. Buy organic.

Off soapbox.