Amused

Twice, I have shopped at the BIG Y, one in Massachusetts and the other in Connecticut. At a Big Y in MA, I received a tremendous discount. I learned thriftiness at a young age, and I expect to find the best price every time I shop.

On this particular visit, I was fatigued from a four hour drive and needed sustenance, so I grabbed a few things and got in line placing everything on the conveyor belt and watched the cashier scan each item. My on-the-fly total was thirty bucks, but the register’s total was twelve. Of course, I didn’t complain or insist on a re-scan, I just smiled and inwardly asked, why?

Yesterday Larissa and I had business to attend to in Connecticut, and I went to the Big Y to pick up our lunch. The cashier grabbed the last item off the belt and before I could object, stuck his hand inside the clear plastic bag covering the organic beets. With a clumsy dexterity, he searched for the product number on the band binding the three clumps of beets together. Try as he may the elastic inevitably escaped his grasp. During the fifth attempt, he glanced up, and my expression said it all, and with that, he uttered an apology. However, was the apology for his brutish handling of the beets, or the excessive amount of time he was taking checking my order?

So I casually said, “I don’t think you are handling those beets any more than everyone else has.” To that comment he took his hand out of the bag and in a rushed manner proceeded to squirt copious amounts of sanitizer onto his hands. But, rather than giving enough time for the alcohol to evaporate, he stuck his glistening hand back into the bag and fumbled with the band a few more times.

When he finally reached the point of desperation, and upon giving up, he said, “I know the code for those, I was just double checking.” That remark left me with one big question, why?

Jeff Bailey © 2018