This video, for instance, makes me happy. Biology and teaching biology makes me happy. Much more than scanning groceries. I should make this song my ringtone!
I shouldn't neglect the last few cashier memories, though. They're a little more sad in some ways because these all happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the holidays make sad situations more tragic somehow.
-A lady I recognized and saw at least weekly was outside picking through our cigarette butt ashtray thing, choosing the butts with the most left on them, and then started smoking those while her people were shopping inside.
-I asked one girl if she was excited for Christmas. "We're having it late," she said. "Because of paychecks and stuff. Maybe sometime in January." Her mom looked embarrassed, and I pointed out that this meant she was going to get presents after school started, and everyone would be jealous of her. She seemed entranced by this idea.
-An 11-year-old(ish) girl had decided she likes me (I haven't been particularly nurturing to her, so I haven't the faintest idea why) so whenever her family comes in (twice a week or so) she'd scour the store until she found me and ask if she could help me. Unfortunately, she's less competent than another kid who does this with me, so mostly she makes things worse. Instead of putting bags in customer's carts, she'll line up all the bags on one arm and make the customer take them from her. When her own mother finally comes through the line to leave, she won't help her mother but whips out a hoard of stuff she's stashed nearby and wants her mother to buy her. I explained that when it's the week before Christmas, one's material interests are often better served by service to others rather than demands on an already stressed mother with a stretched budget, and things like hugs were a good place to start. This was a poorly chosen example: the next time she came in, I was unaware of her presence until she came up behind me to give me a surprise guess-who's-suddenly-in-your-space-and-maybe-abducting-you hug. She is not a small 11-year-old girl. She chose to hug me around the widest point of my belly, which at that point was definitely showing, and had recently been painful for my stomach muscles (probably just muscles doing whatever they do when a baby pushes through them: that is, failing at their jobs), and there was some yelping and wheezing involved. She couldn't understand why the hug wasn't working.
-I had two different men in the same week make inappropriate comments and body language with me that, had they been employees, could certainly have been followed up with some sort of harassment complaint. As it was, it was over almost as soon as it started and there was no time to deal with it then. I'd seen them both before, and this was at a time when my belly was straining the too-small tshirt the store issued me. It's eerie to have big, sweaty, dirty men rake their eyes over you and then come up way too close to you, essentially trapping you in your little register area, and make jokes about you to your face, or jeer at you and ask you inappropriate questions. One of them had his kids with him. But then they were gone out of the store and it was over before I could do anything. Fortunately, both encounters were brief. I'm glad I left before I saw them again.
-The fellow who gave me the jewelry is trying to get me to name my child after him. (He still does this if I happen to be shopping at that store when he's there.) "Lonnie is good for boys and girls," he insists. "It's the least you can do."
-On Christmas Eve, we closed a bit early, and I had the closing shift, which means I stay after we close to mop, clean bathrooms, put misplaced groceries away, etc. Someone in the men's bathroom decided that that was the day to pee everywhere in their stall except for in the toilet. People stink sometimes.
-A lady came in with some shabbily dressed people and got them $50 worth of groceries. She let them go first, paid for them, and then when they left and she was paying for her own we talked. They were homeless and asked her for some money or food, so she took them inside and got them some.
-Someone told me they appreciate my "Yankee Doodle accent."
-A Little Ceasars opened down the way from our store. The store's in a little strip mall type thing, like most grocery stores are. (You know, with a Rite Aid next door and maybe a salon or bank nearby.) They were hiring and having open interviews. I arrived at work at 9 am that day and there was a line of people outside the store that went clear to our store (about 75 yards) and some of the same people were still in line at noon. It's a really hard place to get jobs, so when a store comes that has lots of jobs available all at once, everyone tries for it, hoping they'll be lucky with higher chances. It's the kind of place where businesses get credits if their employees have certain hardships, and no discrimination laws are enforced, so there's a lot of discrimination against applicants that has nothing to do with ability. My boss told me he'd probably not have hired me had he known I was pregnant when I applied (which is exactly why I didn't tell him). It's just that kind of place.
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