This harkens back to the day Mother and I went to Sears and I saw that Brookdale closed for good.
I was kind of tired; I bought shorts (OK, Mother bought them for me) when I didn't even plan on buying anything that afternoon. I just wanted to go home.
Exacerbating that is that there were a lot of people there buying stuff because, well, either because there was a sale going on or it was Sears.
Anyway, there was a line, kind of, for checkout. It was more like a collection of people just hanging out till one of the cash registers opened. And that's the trouble. There was no organization, no ropes to cordon off areas around this square of four registers, no direction that says, "If you want to check out, line up here."
So my frustration began with this lady who asked me if I was waiting in line. I said yes -- actually, I don't remember what I said, I was really tired at this point just standing around. But the next cash register to open was the one behind the one I was waiting in front of. Even though many of us were being civilized and waiting where we all subconsiously decided we should wait, the woman who asked me her question, who was just milling about after I told her yes, was there when that register opened and therefore cut in line. Bitch.
I noticed that a lot of these checkout ladies were taking their time. I don't mind workers enjoying while they work, but when they start making small talk with not only the people they're dealing with but also people who are not checking items out, like the one woman who helped the cunt who cut in front of me, especially when things are busy and there's a line of people waiting, that's when I began to get pissed inside. But I didn't want to lose it. I didn't care about losing it in front of strangers in public; I should do that more often. But I didn't want to blow my top in front of Mother, especially when she's been nice and when she's offered to buy me these shorts.
So I waited until the cash register in front of us opened up. I was finally able to envision going into my bedroom, taking off all my clothes, throwing myself onto my bed and passing out for days. But the checkout girl had other plans.
Did you know that the Sears in Brookdale pays on commission? It has to be, because as soon as we laid our stuff down, this girl was doing everything except checking our stuff out and sending us out the door. She started with, "Do you have your Sears card with you?" After Mother said she forgot it, she asked, "I can look it up for you ... say, you can sign up for a Sears card and you can immediately knock off 15 bucks from the stuff you're buying now."
Wait, I said, as I said to the checkout lady. I was smelling her trying to pull a fast one on Mother, and I had to step in. I barely even remember what I said, I just know that something smelled with her sales pitch. "She already has a Sears card, and you say she can get another Sears card."
"It's a different card. Do you want to sign up?"
I was rapidly regressing to five-year-old mode, and I just looked at Mother as if I just wanted to go home. She has loads of credit cards, so what the fuck was one more, I guess is what she thought. So we did to the very nice people behind what I thought many of the people in front of us were doing to us: We were taking up precious time over bullshit that didn't matter. Mother later said she doesn't plan on using the credit card ever again, she just wanted to fill out the paperwork to get the discount.
It took that fuckin' lady five to ten minutes to look at Mother's information, "process" it on the cash register (can cash registers do that these days?), then proceed to tell me more information in an effort to sell something. At this point she actually took time out to ask if she was pronouncing Mother's name correctly. Who the fuck cares? Are you going to take her money or are you selling us a fucking car?? I might have been too exhausted to care, but there had to be an interminable line of people waiting behind us, and she's over here kibbitzin' with my mom on a first-name basis, like they're friends who haven't seen each other in a long time.
I should stop myself. The girl behind the counter was being nice. Maybe I wouldn't have thought this way if I weren't so doggone tired. But it was very, very clear that this girl was on the make, and on this afternoon, I just didn't want to deal with it. Again, though, I was with Mother, and she was driving this train, and she wanted that discount.
I had to step in. "You're close enough," I told her regarding pronouncing Mother's name. Maybe she really wanted to know, or maybe she was making small talk -- you're working, goddammit, what's a matter with you??? -- she asked me, "How do you pronounce it?"
"Mother," I replied. I was trying to be somewhat humorous, but I said it with a fully level mouth, so I hope she got the message that I didn't give a fuck, now let's do this so we can get the hell out of here.
But then she keeps talking more and more and piling more and more shit on us. Finally, we get the receipt and the stuff in the bag when she throws one more fucking flier in our face, namely denoting the sale going on ... tomorrow evening. "Why did we buy this stuff now?" Mother asked. All that shit, for nothing.
I should bitch about this on Twitter.
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