Her Stress Is Ballooning

(My boyfriend and I walk through the checkout line with a package of balloons.)

Cashier: *very friendly* “Will that be all today?”

Me: “Actually, could we get a couple of these inflated?”

Cashier: *suddenly distraught* “You want me to inflate all of them?!”

Me: “Uh, no, just five or so…”

Cashier: *sighing and visibly annoyed* “Okay, fine. But this is going to take a while.”

(She proceeds to inflate five balloons and tie strings onto them, sighing throughout the whole thing. Note that it is about three pm on a weekday. There are only a few other customers in the store, and several other registers open. At one point another customer gets in line behind us.)

Cashier: *very loudly and obviously annoyed, to the other customer* “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to go around. I have to inflate all of these balloons. It’s going to take a long time.”

(This happens one more time after this, and neither of the other customers seemed to be in any kind of hurry. She finishes the balloons and hands them to us. The whole process took about three minutes.)

Cashier: “Will THAT be all today?”

Me: “Uh… yup. That’s all.”

(She rang us up, I paid, and we left. Neither my boyfriend nor I could understand why inflating five balloons was so stressful!)