This endless New York City winter is starting to melt into spring, which means I'm craving chocolate egg creams more often than not. I took a long walk to Johnny Rocket's for my egg cream fix on Thursday, but today, I decided to pursue a more economical approach to egg cream creation.
Thus, I found myself in the supermarket during my afternoon coffee break, clutching bottles of unflavored seltzer, whole milk, and Fox's U-Bet to my chest. My chosen checkout line was unnaturally short -- the man in front of me held one bag of dog food and the man in front of him was purchasing a six-pack of Fiji water and a bottle of San Pellegrino. Perfect; I only had fifteen minutes to spare, and I had used five of them walking here.
I settled into my place (and a huge cart settled behind me, barring any hope of escape) just in time to hear Water Man say that he required delivery of his purchases. He needed thirty cases of the Fiji water and fifty bottles of the Pellegrino, you see. Fine, I thought; I'd only be delayed by the length of time it took for him to fill out a delivery receipt.
However, my cashier -- a veritable rocket scientist of a woman -- did not realize that modern cash registers possess the ability to ring multiples of the same item by scanning said item and keying "x 40."
Instead, she scanned the Fiji six-pack thirty times.
Then she scanned the Pellegrino bottle fifty times.
Then she squinted at the register screen for five minutes, poking at the tally with a pen cap, to make sure she counted correctly.
Halfway through her Fiji scanning, Dog Food Man and I exchanged incredulous glances. Halfway through her Pellegrino scanning, Dog Food Man and I traded a few snide comments. Halfway through her recount, I picked up a copy of the National Enquirer. Halfway through Kendra Wilkinson's struggle to lose her baby weight, Water Man finally departed and made way for Dog Food Man.
Dog Food Man was my companion in suffering during Water Man's debacle, so I respected him. That is, until he decided to pay for his dog food using a handful of quarters. At this point, I began to wonder if Dog Food Man and Water Man were conspiring to drive me crazy. Our rocket scientist cashier was no help to my fragile mental state, either -- she hadn't gained any mathematical proficiency from her earlier counting exercises, so it took her a while to figure out how much money Dog Food Man had handed her.
After wasting entirely too much of my life in that damned supermarket, it was my turn to check out. I swiped my card, bagged my own groceries, and got the hell out of there as soon as humanly possible. The cashier, in a rare moment of lucidity, seemed relieved to see me go.
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