As Long As No One Was A T-Rex

We have a girl around eleven or twelve who comes in with her mother twice a week. She is on the autism spectrum but is very conversational and social thanks to encouragement from her mother and the fact that this girl associates us with her routine.

Today as she’s helping her mother around the store, she’s carrying a book on dinosaurs. It should be noted that I am quite short, and I am usually seen going around the shelves looking for items close to their expiry dates. The girl approaches me while the mother picks out cereal.

Girl: “I’m assigning you the name Compsognathus since you’re small but fast.”

Me: “Oh, thanks! I’ve always wondered what dinosaur I am!”

Manager: *Who is passing by* “What am I?”

Girl: “You’re Pachycephalosaurus.”

Manager: “Why?”

Girl: “Because you have a big head.”

My very bald, very shiny-headed manager lets out a huge belly laugh.

Manager: “I love it!”

When I went to my break in the staff breakroom, I saw a list had been put up on the whiteboard with the names of everyone on shift and their associated dinosaur. Those without a dinosaur assigned were doing “extra rounds” on the shop floor to try to… “assist” the mother and child customers further. 

She was back the next week with a visual encyclopedia of birds under her arm, and it started all over again!