“They had this ‘cocktail hour’ thing and none of it was really my kind of food. It was, you know, chicken wings and all that bullshit. So I just went and took some raw carrots.” I think she considers this ‘indulging.’

“Oh, god. Then we walked into this crowded room and all I could hear was this noise. Unbelievable noise. It was so loud. I think the kids call it music.” She was serious, and highly confused by what was coming out of the speakers. She was even more confused by the dancing that accompanied this music.

“These girls, you know, were all wearing these dresses and pulling them up. Strapless dresses in the winter. And they are thirteen. It was ridiculous.” This included a mess of rather interesting hand motions that I think were supposed to mimic the act of pulling up one’s dress.

“There was this man sitting across from us, and he was just groping some woman. Groping her. I mean, he practically had his fingers up her ass.” No comment.

“But at least they had an open bar. I had club soda.” Clearly, my mother is one party animal.

Note: I’m not being cruel. She reads this blog, and she will laugh. If she didn’t read this blog, I’d be sure to include a picture of what she was wearing. Now that is entertainment.

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The other day, after I finished ringing up an elderly woman’s groceries, she handed me a card with John 3:16 typed out on it. On the other side, in script handwriting, it read “Jesus loves you.” On either side of me stood cashiers with crosses around their necks, but of course I was standing at the register this woman happened to go to. And to add to the irony of the situation, I was wearing my gay pride bracelet. Perfect.

This weekend, I received yet another religious customer set on saving my soul. He handed me two cards held together with a rubber band, complete with Bible verses he advised I say to myself before going to sleep each night. Yeah, okay.

The two prayer cards given to me by a customer.

To be honest, I think it’s just plain rude. Even if they hand these cards out blindly, they have to know that there are many people in the world who do not share their beliefs. To assume that those people are naive and impressionable enough to completely change their beliefs and lifestyles around based on one card is pretty offensive. I even know many religious people who would find it offensive, especially because it implies that religion needs advertising in the first place. Religion should be personal and something one finds on their own, not an organization they eventually succumb to after being pressured by messages and advertisements all around them.

That’s why I don’t see the purpose in organized religion — if religion is supposed to be personal, how can one system work for such large groups of people? How can one system work for people who are born into it and know nothing else? People who have had no chance to discover their own beliefs are not making a personal choice, but rather taking a lifestyle that has been set out for them for granted. I do believe that at some point, historically, organized religion did serve a greater social purpose, but I think it’s time our society move beyond that.

Today, we have so many different organized religions to begin with that any social or anthropological purpose they once served can’t possibly still apply. How do such strong clashing opinions–sometimes fanatical ones–help to keep society structured? In ancient times, religion helped to keep societies in peace and transition into what we would now call civilization. That’s not to say it never caused trouble in the past, but it certainly had a more positive social relevance than it does today. Conversely, when we think of how religion impacts our society today, the first things that come to mind include war and discrimination. Anytime religion even comes up in a regular conversation it typically ends in some sort of disagreement, to the point where it’s considered socially inappropriate to even mention religion. Does that sound like a peaceful, structured system to you, or one that socially benefits our society at all? Something that gets people so angry we can’t even talk about it?

These cards were the perfect example of those clashing views we all have — the customers I had probably pass out many more on a daily basis, but I’m sure they elicit very different reactions from people every time. Some might be touched, some offended, some might verbally attack them, and others will just blog about it. In any case, I think this kind of “advertising” has a lot more potential for bad than good, unless, I suppose, you live in a town with very little religious diversity. Either way, I don’t see why some people delude themselves into thinking this will make a positive difference. Some people will already agree with you, and others will continue to disagree with you — and maybe even more strongly.

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1. “Oh, it must be free!” Whenever an item doesn’t scan or I can’t find the correct produce code, 98% of customers will laugh and claim the item is free. When I don’t laugh the first time, they usually repeat themselves, assuming I didn’t hear them. Newsflash: this is the oldest, stupidest, and most annoying joke anyone could ever tell a cashier. Around the 200th time we hear it for the day, we stop pretending to enjoy it.

2. “Working hard or hardly working?” Without a doubt, every male customer over the age of 70 thinks this is the most hilarious joke in the universe. It must be a generational thing, like how people in my age group amuse themselves by using netspeak in everyday conversation. I’m actually beginning to contemplate responding to this joke with the word “lulz” just to see what kind of reaction I will get.

3. “Were you waiting just for me?” Whenever the store is slow, customers are understandably excited to see no lines at the registers when they come to check out. However, I can assure you that their relief in no way compares to my own when I finally get a chance to sit down, get a drink, and take a break from scanning and bagging all day. So when the store finally slows down after I’ve spent 8 hours on my feet, the last thing I’m waiting for is another customer to ring up. You’re not that special.

4. “Well, that’s less money than I spent on gas this morning!” Gas prices are high, I know. I’m not living in a cave. And I’ve heard much funnier jokes about it by now, so don’t even try.

5. “Oh, I have to pay now?” Yes.

6. “Hmm, might have a few more items than 15!” More like 115. In the express lane. I don’t care who you are or why you’re in a rush or how full the other registers are, being an asshole and holding up someone just trying to buy a bottle of water with your enormous order and even more enormous collection of coupons is not funny.

So for those of you who weren’t aware, none of these jokes are new to me or to any other cashier on the planet. We see hundreds of people a day and nothing you come up with is something we haven’t heard before. Please think of something a little bit more original, will you?

Previous confessions: 1, 2, 3

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“Wait, you’re a lesbian?” he asks.

“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Well, it’s just like you can usually tell.” Sensing my confusion, he quickly adds, “like Rosie O’donnell or something.”

“Right. Because all lesbians are overweight comedians.”

“Well, no,” he says apologetically, “but you know.”

A brief silence ensues. I’m hoping he’ll lay off, but I begin to feel sorry for the idiot and make the mistake of speaking again. “You still look confused,” I offer, hoping he’ll take the chance to redeem himself.

“Well you just like, make out with other girls?”

“Yeah, that’s generally what lesbians do,” I say lightly, still hoping he’ll begin to understand. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.

“But I mean, you’d like never make out with like, me?” Pause. “Or any guy,” he adds.

“No,” I say firmly. Still not getting it.

“Wow. You know, I still wouldn’t have guessed you’re a lesbian. Not that you all look the same, but most are just… butch, you know? But I guess you’re not one of those. Like when you’re in a relationship, she’s the guy?”

“No, neither one of us is the guy. We’re both women. That’s kind of the point.”

Awkward silence. I think he gets it, I think he gets it!

And then comes the icing on the cake.

“Well, I do love watching girls make out.”

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Recently, there have been some horrendous sounds coming from the bathroom in my dormitory. A late night trip to the restroom revealed to me the source of this problem: speakers hooked up to an iPod belonging to someone whose iTunes library apparently contains nothing but rap music. After discovering this, I also realized that one particularly annoying song, which Google has informed me is called “Crank Dat Soulja Boy,” has become very popular not just in my bathroom, but everywhere. I can’t walk around campus or go to the mall or do much of anything without hearing people singing about cranking dat Supaman.

Despite the widespread popularity of this song, I had a difficult time deciphering the words. My Google search proved useless here, as after reading the lyrics, I still had no idea what the words actually meant. Never have I heard “Superman” in this context before. I thought Superman was just a fictional character, and I’m not sure when the word became a verb. At this point, I turned to Urban Dictionary to help me. What I’ve learned is that when you “superman dat hoe,” you ejaculate on a girl’s back and attach a sheet or blanket to her so that it sticks like a cape. Apparently, this is how to “put a bitch in her place” if she refuses sexual activity, which somehow makes her a “hoe.”

I’m slightly confused by this message. First of all, the song contains the words “soulja boy” in the title, which I’m told should be read as “soldier boy.” Does the rapper mean to imply that soldiers are sexist, horny bastards who have no respect for women? Or does he mean to give off a more respectable image by implying that his disgustingly sexist ideas make him a strong role model for boys? I’m also confused about the spelling of “soldier.” Since when is there a ‘j’ in there?

From the message of the song to the music itself, which sounds more like a lot of banging on loud instruments and screaming, this song comes across as very confusing to a listener like me. As I’ve explained, it took me a long time to hear, decipher, translate and understand the words, and I’m still having difficulty. If you’d please excuse my ignorance and answer some of these questions for me, I’d greatly appreciate it. Perhaps if you would also find some artists with a decent amount of talent and begin making music with a more understandable and respectable message, this confusion would happen less frequently. There was a time when music contained melody and soul, but it has deteriorated into what I can only describe as a mess of ignorant, money-hungry celebrities with no talent other than screaming or looking pretty who like to masquerade as musicians, defacing what many others love and respect dearly.

I hope you understand how unfortunate this problem is and that you will do your best to save the world from horrible music, as they are becoming more and more corrupted by the day. Yesterday I saw a 12-year-old girl preforming what has been dubbed the “soulja boy dance,” and I can only hope the poor soul will one day learn and have the chance to appreciate what real music is.

Sincerely,
Concerned listener

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“Wait. Miss, you owe me $5. You only gave me $1.48″

“Yes, but your total was $13.52, and you gave me $15. See?” I point at her receipt.

“Didn’t I give you $20?”

“No, you gave me a $10 bill and a $5. It shows as $15 here on your receipt.” I point again.

The woman looks at her receipt some more, reading over the items to make sure there isn’t a mistake anywhere else. As I finish the next customer, she complains again. “No, something must be wrong. I definitely had a $20 bill in my wallet and now I don’t.” Obviously, I can’t simply open up the cash drawer and pull out $5 for her because she thinks she had a $20 bill before. Mistakes happen. People misplace money. So, I check to make sure I hadn’t been the one to make a mistake.

I ring for the front-end manager. He looks at the receipt and repeats what I had said to her, asking what the problem is. I explained the situation to him. “I believe she gave me $15, which is what appears on the receipt, but I may have typed it in incorrectly. She thinks she gave me $20.”

“I don’t think I gave her $20, I’m absolutely certain I did,” she angrily tells him. The manager takes out the till and takes it to be counted at the courtesy desk, making sure it adds up to the exact amount that should be in there. I sit and watch, embarrassed as this woman’s eyes viciously stare in my direction, believing I had made a horrible mistake.

The till breaks even. The courtesy desk shows the frustrated customer the printed sum of money on a piece of paper and explains to her that it is the exact amount in there. If she had given me $20, the till would be over by $5. They refuse to give her the money she was “absolutely certain” she deserved. The customer leaves in a fury, but not before complaining that “this has happened before” and “there is obviously something wrong with this store.” She even pulls out her wallet to prove she has no $20 bill, although this means nothing to those of us who have no idea how much money is supposed to be in there.

Not only was she rude to me while I rang her up and after I agreed to check with my manager, she also refused to let it go after she was plainly proven wrong. I still can’t imagine how she handed me two separate bills and thought it was a $20 bill, or how she could argue that I took a single bill and thought that it somehow added up to $15, such an obvious mistake I would easily catch it on my own and correct it. It doesn’t make any sense, and I know I was right. If I had made a mistake I would have apologized profusely, but I hadn’t. She was wrong–and even then she refused to apologize! Her rude behaviour only became worse, and she was quite clearly trying to cheat us out of money at that point. And $5! How pathetic.

Getting a summer job at a grocery store was a good move on my part. And I’m actually not being sarcastic here. Not only is it extra money, but you really do get to know human nature out there. You see the best and worst of people. Usually the worst. Sometimes it seems like the very worst. But hey, it’s a learning experience.

So, moral of the story? Stick to your guns–people are fucktards and will try to push you around and screw you over for a measly $5. And, of course, the most refreshing news of all to any cashier out there: the customer isn’t always right!

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1. No, I don’t know what’s on sale this week. My job is to ring up your order and not blow up at you when you ask annoying questions–not to sit around and memorize sale prices from the weekly flyer.

2. Yes, I did ring it up correctly. Everything is according to UPC code. There is no way I accidentally added $5 to your order, so hurry up and pull one of your ten credit cards out of that designer purse and let me move on to the next customer.

3. If you’re going to sit there and watch me scan all of the items on your $200+ order without bothering to start the bagging, thus forcing me to do it after ringing up your order and holding up all of the customers behind you for even longer, do not then complain that you don’t like the way I bag. Why are you using double paper bags, anyway? Stop killing trees and either use the fucking plastic or bring your own bags. They’re easier to carry, anyway.

4. Don’t sit there obnoxiously tapping your foot waiting for your receipt after you’ve held up everyone else for 10 minutes by insisting on having two separate orders, paying for each one half with debit and half with cash, re-doing all of the bagging and then trying to return an item that you didn’t realize was $1 more than you originally thought.

5. Coupons. No more than 20 per person, please. The money you’ll save isn’t worth an extra 10 minutes ringing up your order. And don’t act like it’s a huge inconvenience when I have to ring for the front-end manager to give an override because of how much money has been taken off of the order.

6. At the end of my 8-hour shift, do not complain to me that you’ve been in a store for nearly an hour and get no help from your spouse or children in doing the grocery shopping for your family. I don’t give a shit.

And believe me, I could go on. But I’ll spare you the rest. Despite what you may think, I’m actually a pretty patient person. During the school year, I worked at the after school program we had for the younger children whose parents worked and couldn’t pick them up until later in the day, and I had to deal with a whole bunch of kids from pre-K through the fourth grade. There’s a lot of crying, screaming, name-calling, cheating on homework, pushing on the playground, etc., but that’s the sort of behaviour you expect from someone who is six and has spent 8 hours at school. Not someone who is 40 and accidentally picked up the wrong can of tuna fish and has to run back to aisle seven for it. Boo-hoo.

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