Arnie’s Just Giving Them Away

(I am working as a part-time cashier. It is a quiet shift, so my colleague and I are chatting in between serving customers, and the recent news of Arnie Schwarzenegger’s love children comes up. Just then, an attractive woman comes up to my till with a few items, and I dutifully start scanning her shopping and making the usual small-talk. And then I try to say:)

Me: “Do you want a carrier bag?”

(But what I actually say is:)

Me: “Do you want a child?”

(The moment stretched as we both processed what I’d said, whilst my colleague quietly started cracking up behind her. I tried to stammer out an apology, but she just took a bag and we finished the transaction in silence. And that’s the time I accidentally propositioned a woman in a supermarket.)