Boring Shopping Post

Hi!

I went to the local drugstore today!  Because it's close, and I know where most of the shit is!  And I'm a rock star!  That's what rockstars do!  They go to the drug store on a Friday night!!!!


I went to the drugstore for three things.  First, I was buying Valerian Root, which I take for my occasional sleeplessness, and for the kickass dreams it gives me.  (Last night's excursion to dreamland included getting fired from writing on Saturday Night Live by Tina Fey because all my sketches were about necrophilia.  My defense was that they weren't about necrophilia.  They just had something to do with it, because it's funny.)  I also bought a can of Tinactin.  Your old pal Tommy has had a minor recurrence of ye olde Athlete's Foot, which is as ironic an affliction as ever I could get.  I also bought a bottle of water, because I was thirsty.


It's a Friday night, so there aren't a lot of people visiting the apothecary.  At least, not the legal one.  It was me, and another fellow who bought a gallon of milk, and a lady who was SHOPPING THE HELL OUT OF THE CVS!!!!


I work retail, as some of you know.


I am irked by couponers.


I get the concept.


But Coupon people can be troublesome.  


There is a sense of entitlement that many of them (not all...I try not to lump people together, unless they can turn their eyelids inside out, because those motherfuckers are the Devil!) carry with them.  They can wipe out an inventory on a product simply because they have 9 two-dollar coupons for the orange bottle of Herbal Essence shampoo that your store also has on sale for 2.50 this week.  They're so amped that they're going to be buying a gallon of shampoo for the same price as a gallon a milk that when we have to impose a store-sanctioned limit of 2 bottles per customer, their minds break, and they become Murder Maniacs.


Three of my best workers have been killed in the past year by Couponers.


Tragedy.  Bee Gees Style, yo.


I don't know.  I've used a coupon or two, in my time.  I get it.  I guess my own personal free time is so rare that I just don't feel like spending even a half-hour perusing the sale papers and online ads and emails and circulars for that 75 cents of a bottle of Kaopectate coupon.  

And I grant you that maybe I should.  I drive a 10-year-old car, and am pinching pennies to buy a house, and I go through Kaopectate like I think I'll win a prize for it.

But still.  I'd rather spend that time with my girlfriend, or my family, or reading a book, or watching TV, or clipping my fingernails, or updating my Will and Grace blog, or watching pro wrestling, or telling ghost stories, or listening to ghost stories, or watching Jack Osbourne hunt for ghosts on the SyFy Channel after pro wrestling goes off.

Or eating bacon.  Because, well, there isn't a whole lot I'd rather be doing than watching bacon.

But, there is one thing I'd rather do less.

And that's stand behind a couponer at a drugstore on a Friday night when I'm buying three things and want to go home to watch that Jack Osbourne ghost-hunting show.

Not really.  It's just on my TV, and it's awful.

But I digress.

I took my Valerian Root, Tinactin and water to the counter, only to have a lady with two carts of crap get in front of me.

It wasn't a foot race, and she didn't jump.  But she did make sure that she got to the counter first.

Let me say this.  I wasn't exaggerating when I said she had two carts of crap.  Food.  Toilet Paper.  Shampoo.  Anything else you can think of.

And she was in front of me.

And it was then that I saw it:

The notebook.

Maybe it's the organization of the couponer that bothers me.  They have these notebooks, with baseball card sheets for the coupons.  They are categorized and sectioned and cordoned and organized according to price, alphebetically by size.

While my own personal organization style tends toward "slob piles," I recognize organization and appreciate it.  But when it's taken to extremes...tedious extremes...blech.

Also?  It doesn't work.  People misplace coupons.  They don't realize coupons have expired, or have limits, etc.

So, I asked:  "Do you mind if I go ahead of you?"

Three things, I had.  Three.  She had easily 75.  I had 3.

"I do mind," she said.

I don't know what I said.  Maybe "Really?"

The cashier (and I dearly wish I'd caught her name, because she is my hero) didn't miss a beat.  She moved to her left, my right.  She moved to the next register, the one I was standing at.  She said to me:  "I can get you over here."

"Ok," I said.

"I was in line first," said the lady.

Neither of us said anything.  8 seconds later, my items were rung up.  I paid cash.  My transaction was done in less than 30 seconds.

"Have a good night," the cashier said.  And moved back to her right.  As I left the store, I heard her telling the lady she can set her stuff on the counter.

She is my hero.

Good Customer Service.

Don't Be a Dick.

I'm tired.

G'night.