It’s a Saturday. I’m in a fairly busy grocery store. I’m waiting in line to check out behind a guy with a relatively small amount of items, so I am hoping it will be quick.

Cashier: “Oh, wow. Looks like someone is planning a special evening!”

At that, I look down and take notice of what the guy in front of me is actually purchasing. It’s a nice bottle of wine, candles, and fresh flowers, as well rack of lamb and all the fixings for what looks to be a very nice and expensive night in.

Man: “Yeah, hoping to surprise my wife tonight with a nice date night.”

Cashier: “Surprise her? This looks like an anniversary- or birthday-level dinner. She probably knows something’s coming.”

Man: “Oh, no, nothing like that. She just had to work on a Saturday, and I was off, so I figured I would just do something out of the blue.”

Cashier: “Oh, so you cheated.”

This is totally out of nowhere, and the whole tone shifts. It goes from light conversation as she scans items to an accusatory tone, and she has slowed down to a near crawl.

Man: “Excuse me?”

Cashier: “You must have cheated or at least done something f***ed up. No man does something like this just because. Give me a break. Men do stuff like this when they feel guilty for cheating. She’ll know — you know that, right? She’ll know some big ‘out of the blue’ gesture is just you feeling bad for something you won’t fess up to yet. Do you know what your wife would actually want instead of your ‘I feel guilty’ dinner? You to actually fess up to what you did so she can move on with her life without your sorry a**!”

The cashier’s volume is escalating through the course of her rant, and the man is just kind of in shock as to how quickly everything has shifted, as is everyone else in line. But the raised voices bring over another employee I presume to be the manager.

Manager: “Hey, guys. Everything going okay over here?”

Man: “Well, not exactly. I’m just trying to check out, and instead of scanning my items so I can pay, we’ve come to halt so I can be yelled at and accused of some pretty serious things.”

Cashier: “Look. I was just telling it how I see it. If he doesn’t want to get called a piece of s***, he shouldn’t act like a piece of s*** cheater.”

Manager: “Okay, that’s about enough. [Cashier], you are on break effective immediately. Go to the back and take your break, and as soon as I am done with this customer, I will be coming to have a long discussion with you.”

The cashier said, “Okay,” and casually walked to the back with this weird attitude as if it was a completely normal interaction and she hadn’t just gone off on a customer. The manager finished up the transaction, apologizing the whole time. I think he gave the man a small discount, and the rest of the transaction went off without a hitch.

I never saw that particular cashier again, though I only go there about twice a month, so that might not mean anything. That was just the most sudden tone shift I had ever seen in a checkout line.

My wife and I shopped in a home improvement store in the next town over. I purchased an item. As my purchase was being put in the register, the clerk asked for my zip code. I knew why but chose to ask the reason.

Clerk: “We need the zip code so we can charge the correct sales tax, according to the new state law that identifies the sales tax rate by the zip code of the customer.”

Me: “You don’t need it for this purchase.”

Clerk: “You don’t understand. We—”  

I cut her off in a nice way.

Me: “I do understand. I’m an accountant, and the new law requires you to charge sales tax by zip code at the point of delivery. Because this item is being delivered into my hands, in your store, in your town, that is the point of delivery for the zip code to charge sales tax. So, charge me the sales tax according to the rate in this town.”

A few weeks later, we were back in that store and purchased an item. It so happened that the same clerk rang us up.

Clerk: “You were the one who explained the sales tax to me, right?”

Me: “Yep.”

Clerk: “I told our manager what you told me. He called corporate and they told him, ‘That guy is right.’ We have been doing it wrong for a couple of months now. Thanks for correcting us.”

Did I get a discount? Did I want one? No. I just couldn’t let that store keep screwing up.

My mom, my siblings, and I are on the way to visit a relative in Germany, and on the way there, we stop at a gas station for lunch and refueling. I initially take a bottle of water and a snack, while my family takes sandwiches, but while we’re walking out, my eldest brother’s sandwich slips out and falls, splattering on the cement untouched.

I decide to go back and buy him a new sandwich, but as I try to pay the cashier, he points at me, saying something in German I can’t understand.

Me: “I’m sorry, I can’t really speak German.”

The only words he could say in response were “water no paid” and “police”. I made a valiant effort to prove I had already paid for that bottle of water once, but to no avail. The cashier was clearly losing his temper, so I went out and asked my brother for the receipt for the meal… only to find out it had been thrown away already.

With the cashier screaming at me, and only holding my lunch and the water bottle, I rushed back and begrudgingly paid for the bottle twice.

I do understand his point of view, but I have never seen shoplifters going right back in with the stolen merchandise, or indeed go to legitimately pay for anything!

My daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome. She doesn’t like walking around a public area without someone to talk to; otherwise, she will start to panic. She also has trouble working out people’s facial expressions; she’s told me that she understands that when people smile they are happy and when they frown they are sad, but she doesn’t know what it means for her if someone does this when talking to her. As you can expect, face masks have made this even more difficult for her.

[Daughter] also has problems understanding social situations and will, if she feels scared or threatened, start to react. We both feel bad about this, but the best way I can describe this is akin to a dog biting someone that provokes them. [Daughter] usually says the first thing that comes to her mind when she is frightened.

I am driving [Daughter] back to her house when we have to stop off at the local supermarket. She goes in by herself. I completely trust her to do this, as she knows not to push people out of the way and knows to go to the employees if she is stuck.

When she gets to the till, the cashier is wearing a mask. [Daughter] makes happy small talk with her until it is time to pay.

As [Daughter] has a lot of shopping and the plastic barriers are still up, she does not know where to place the money. She extends her arm over the top of the shopping, a good foot or more, placing the money as close as she can to the counter, perhaps a couple of inches away. I do not know how far it was. As soon as she places the money down, the cashier stares at [Daughter].

[Daughter] thinks that because the cashier is looking at her, she can’t see the money, so she innocently smiles and points.

Daughter: “It’s over there.”

Cashier: “You have some attitude, you know that?”

Daughter: *Getting tense and scared* “I don’t—”

Cashier: “You throw money at me and say, ‘It’s over there!’”

[Daughter] doesn’t quite remember exactly what happened next, but she defensively replies:

Daughter: “I wasn’t, p***head!”

The cashier shouted back at [Daughter], leading to another employee continuing the transaction. [Daughter] came back to the car almost in tears because, apart from swearing, she didn’t know what she had done wrong. She admits that it was wrong to swear, but she was confused and scared by this stranger shouting at her and, as I said, it was like an animal being provoked. [Daughter] was more upset by feeling as if she had angered someone.

Because of this incident, [Daughter] now has a special badge that tells people she is disabled.

There are two supermarkets I regularly visit: one by my workplace and one by my home. I always use the self-checkout at the one by work because they train the cashiers to be extremely “aggressive” in pushing every little thing about the store, which I’m not interested in and don’t want to have a conversation about every time I buy something. I never use the self-checkout at the store by my house if I can avoid it because the most recent update to the operating system completely broke them.

One night, I just want to pick up three things: a gallon of milk, some gnocchi, and some sauce. I stop by the market by work, but due to a prolonged power outage, all the milk had to be dumped, and the self-checkouts are still down. It probably takes about forty-five seconds to actually scan, pay for, and bag my stuff; it takes almost five minutes to tell the cashier that no, I don’t have any coupons or rainchecks, I do have a store card which I have already scanned, I don’t have a store credit card, I don’t WANT a store credit card, I don’t want to be on the email list, etc., etc.

Already frustrated with all of this, I stop at the store near my home and grab my milk. The express lane is closed and there are lines at every other register, so I resign myself to the self-checkout. I only have one thing, so it can’t go THAT badly, right? …right?

Register: “How many reusable bags are you using?”

I press “zero”.

Register: “Please scan your items.”

I scan the milk.

Register: “Please place your item in th—” *BLEEP BLEEP* “Please remove unscanned items from the—” *BLEEP BLEEP* “Help is on the way.”

At this point, the milk is still in my hand and I’m staring blankly at the screen. With a grumble that I only half-hear as something like, “Here we go again,” the person working the self-checkout comes over. It’s clear that this is NOT the first time today as she hits the button to cancel the alert, unlocks the order, resets the scale, zeroes the scale, reopens the order, and then closes out of the cashier screen.

Register: “Please place your item in the bagging area.”

I carefully, fearfully do so.

Register: “Please continue scanning.”

I hit “Done” to get to payment and choose zero bags to purchase.

Register: *BLEEP BLEEP* “Help is on the way.”

Me: “Okay, but why, though?!“

Cashier: “Did you select any reusable bags?”

Me: “No, I’m just carrying it. It doesn’t understand the concept of ‘carrying’, so you have to choose one or the other.”

Cashier: “Yep.” *Hits the button and saves me about eight steps back and forth* “At least you save five cents!”

Me: “Yaaaay. I’m gonna punch it.”

Cashier: “No, no, please. We have a betting pool to see whether they fix the software or one of us snaps and takes a sledgehammer to them first.”

My money’s on the sledgehammer!