| Sunday, October 29, 2006 |
16:15 - Custom service
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As I've mentioned before, I like those grocery stores that focus on employing friendly, conscientious checkers rather than replacing them with automated checkout kiosks. I know some people find the automated systems convenient—as do I, when I only have a few items of no particular bulk or odd size, or in places like Home Depot—but for my part, most of the time, I'd rather have that moment of repartée that sometimes crops up when I'm lucky enough to find myself faced with one of those employees who's clearly only there while on their way to something better.
I stood there as she scanned my bag of heirloom tomatoes. She scowled at the oddly shaped, wrinkled fruits vegetablfruiting bodies, and asked me, "Do they have the same kind of texture as regular tomatoes?" I said they did, and that the main thing was a sweeter flavor and cool swirly colors; but she and the other checker manning the counter shared a glance and mentioned that they couldn't stand tomatoes because of the slimy texture of the seeds. "Mushrooms either," she added.
"But what about avocados?" her co-worker ventured. "Oh, I love avocados," my checker beamed. "They're like butter."
It was time for me to weigh in, or endure more impugning of my beloved tomatoes and mushrooms. "I guess there's two kinds of people in the world: mushroom people, and avocado people."
At this, the big, burly, mechanic-looking guy standing behind me in line, with a filthy t-shirt hanging down to his knees and what looked like three days' worth of salt-n-pepper stubble, said, "Hey, there's always your olive people." And he held up his hands and wiggled his fingers, as though there was an olive on each fingertip.
You never know where your daily laughs might come from, do you? At least I know, though, that I won't be getting them from the ITEM REMOVED FROM BAGGING AREA lady in the auto-checkout machine.
Oh, but that wasn't all. The checker gave me my receipt, saying that it comes with a coupon for 10 cents a gallon off gasoline at any Safeway that has a gas station—a phenomenon I'd noticed in Canada last year on the approach to the Alaska Highway. I guess they must be starting to put in such services at stateside Safeways too, now.
But there must have been something weird in my expression as I took the receipt, because she said, "So, you know, you can really save some money if you drive to, oh, I don't know, Alaska or something."
If she thought I had a weird expression before she said, that, she hadn't seen nothin' yet.
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Brian Tiemann
