I am a regular at our local grocery store and have gotten to know the employees. Most are fine, and then there’s [Cashier]. I will wait an extra half-hour to check out rather than use the register he is manning. Here are a few reasons for that.

I put a bag of three tomatoes on the belt. [Cashier] squeezes each tomato as he rotates it in the bag to find the item number, even though I’ve already weighed and tagged the tomatoes.

Cashier: “You know, these are really ripe!”

Me: *Internally* “No kidding, I intend to use them in my cooking tonight.”

I get home to discover the skin of all three torn with finger-shaped bruises all over.

During the health crisis, when the store mandates you cannot put your groceries on the belt until the cashier cleans the belt, and customers are assigned to a line by a store employee, this happens.

Cashier: “I’ll let you know when the belt is clean; don’t unload your cart yet.”

Me: “You cleaned the belt before the customer ahead of me, who bought only a newspaper, which he didn’t even set on the belt since it was all wet.”

Cashier: “Nope, rules are rules.”

He uses a spray bottle until the surface of the belt is absolutely soaked, wipes it down with one sheet of paper towel, advances the belt, and repeats the process until he has a belt that is wet and shiny all around. It’s at least a ten-minute process.

After I’ve carefully stacked the groceries to keep boxes and paper items off the still wet belt, the cashier says this:

Cashier: “You can’t put items on top of each other; everything has to make contact with the sanitizer.”

He sets each item on the belt before scanning it.

Me: “Exactly what benefit is setting the bottom of a box of cereal on the belt gaining me when you are touching everything on the top and sides, as will I when I use it? Also, please remove the dried pasta from my order, as I can see the box already starting to sag from getting wet, which means the bottom layer of pasta is probably covered in sanitizer spray, too.”

The #1 reason I refuse to go to [Cashier]’s line unless forced to:

I unload a full week’s worth of groceries for a family of four onto the belt. [Cashier] comments on every single item he rings up.

Cashier: “Are these good?”

Cashier: “How do you use [item of produce] in your cooking?”

Cashier: “I haven’t eaten this since I was a kid!”

Cashier: “Oh, these make people fat.”

And so on. I ignore him and tune him out, until…

Cashier: “Oh, a box of tampons! How do these feel when you use them? I see lots of women buying them and I’ve always wondered what it is like.”

He continues asking about the tampons the entire time I’m bagging my groceries and paying.

Even if he was flirting — and I don’t think he was — the guy is pasty white, wears Coke-bottle glasses, and has been working as a cashier for at least the ten years I’ve been a customer, while most of the other cashiers I’ve known have received promotions to better positions. He’s not a Prince Charming by any stretch of the imagination.

The customer points to a bulk container of pretzels.

Customer: “Do you have any containers like this that are bigger?”

Me: “I’m sorry; that’s the largest package of pretzels we carry.”

Customer: “Not just pretzels. Anything; it’s the jar I need. My mother went deep-sea fishing and caught a little shark. We need a jar about this—” *indicates a size of about a foot by two feet* “—big to put it in.”

As part of the measures to protect employees and shoppers from a certain illness, our supermarket has decided to add to the cleaning; there’s a person that goes round continuously wiping down “touchpoints,” i.e., keypads, basket handles, and freezer door handles. There’s a rota for this for regular staff, and today’s my day.

I’m going down the frozen aisle, cleaning the freezers, when…

Customer: “NO! DON’T!”

I turn to see a very exasperated-looking mother holding her young child who has clearly just licked the freezer divider glass.

Customer: “For God’s sake! You’re gonna get sick by doing that! And make other people sick, too! Honestly! Next time, I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know! But I’ll do something!” 

She dragged her kid off whilst muttering. I liberally sprayed the glass that the child had just licked.

I’m a cashier at a large grocery store. A woman starts loading her groceries on the end of the belt and I’m watching her, waiting for the items to roll down the belt so I can reach them.

Customer: “Oh, wow, you have very pretty eyes.”

Me: “Oh, thank you!”

Customer: “What color are they?”

I hesitate for a moment.

Me: “They’re blue-ish.”

Customer: “They look green.”

Me: “No, ma’am. They’re definitely blue, but sometimes they look more grey.”

Customer: “Oh, you have those kinds of eyes that like change color sometimes?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Customer: “My niece has eyes like that. The ones that change colors. Scares the daylights out of me. I think she’s possessed. I hate her eyes.”

Me: “Oh.”

I quickly changed the subject back to her groceries in order to hide my surprise.

At our store, we get a lot of Spanish-speaking customers, so my coworker decides he wants to learn to say a few things in Spanish.

Coworker: “So, I already know the word for chicken is ‘pollo,’ but what’s the word for turkey?”

Me: “‘Pavo.'”

Coworker: “And what’s the word for ham?”

Me: “‘Jamon.'”

Coworker: “C’mon?”

Me: “No, ‘jamon.'”

Coworker: “Gum on?”

Me: “Noooo…”

I write it down on a piece of paper for him.

Coworker: “Hah, ‘jam on’! That’s so cool!”

Me: “Jam on?”

Coworker: *Doing air guitar* “Yeah, it’s like, JAM ON, BRO! WHOO!”

He stuck his tongue out like Gene Simmons, raised his right arm, and made a “devil horns” gesture while grabbing his crotch with the other hand.

I just facepalmed.