Racism Is Toxic

A woman has been shopping in our beauty/make-up section for a while, scrutinizing every product as she scans. After what feels like an age, she finally comes up to a register with a basket full of items.

Customer: “It’s so hard to find items that aren’t made in Asia! Especially China!”

Me: *Scanning.* “Is there a reason you try to avoid items from Asia?”

Customer: “You work here, and you don’t know?! The Chinese put poison in their stuff! It’s designed so that our body heat lets the poison melt into our skin and kill us.”

Me: “Ma’am, that is absolutely not true.”

Customer: “It is! They don’t report it on the news as it’s a cover-up, but it’s true!”

Me: “Ma’am, if that were true, we’d be dealing with dead bodies every day from the makeup testers we have in store.”

Customer: *Ignoring my point.* “Everything made in China is toxic! Deadly!”

I stay silent. She’s not aware that my father is White, but my mother is Chinese. I make sure to thoroughly touch every single thing in her basket as I finish checking her out, y’know, to get my toxins all over it. Some of the items she is buying today are on sale with a coupon, and I’ve been telling customers without the coupon how to get it up on their phone if they weren’t aware of it. I forgot to do that for this customer.