Have a Nice Day
“I can take you here,” says the happy checkout clerk at the grocery store, “I’m open.”
“I have a full cart,” I tell him. I point to the cart.
“That’s okay. I can take you here.” He is wearing bunny ears. For Easter, I guess.
“But the sign says ‘14 items or less’.” I point to the sign.
“That’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything.”
I’m tempted to enter into a philosophy of language debate with this fellow wearing bunny ears, but something tells me it’s best not to. Instead, I start to unload my groceries onto the conveyor belt. I have a lot of groceries.
Another shopper gets in line behind me. All she has is a single can of cat food. Express checkout lanes in grocery stores were made for people like her. She knows it. The happy checkout clerk with the bunny ears has already started scanning my items, so I can’t invite her to jump ahead of me. The look on her face says she is annoyed.
Now she’s pointing at the sign. The sign means something to her. I shrug my shoulders, as if that meant something. I guess it does. Now she’s glaring at me. I avoid further eye contact.
I watch the clerk with the bunny ears happily scanning and bagging my items. This goes on for a long time. He finishes and I pay for it.
“Have a nice day!” he says with a big smile on his face and bunny ears on his head. I think he really means it.
“Yeah,” says the woman behind me, “have a nice friggin’ day.” She means it too.
