Grocery Store Employees Are a Hoot.

As I've become more independent from my family in adulthood, I've started doing my own grocery shopping and running my own errands. The feeling of earning my keep is rewarding. What's not rewarding, however, are the painful experiences I've had with several grocery store employees at the store down the street.

I started to notice this trend of less than sane people ringing up my food when I was a freshman in college. I went to the grocery store one morning because:

1. There's a Dunkin' Donuts inside and coffee was calling my name that morning and...

2. I needed to pick up something for my lunch that day, not wanting to spend an inordinate amount of money on sub par school food.

I approached the front of the store, where a tiny black man with a tiny head and an angry look was glaring at a man in a suit.

"Why are you standing out here in the rain?" Mr. Business Man asked.

"I LIKE DA RAIN!" retorted Mini Mr. T.

"But you could catch a cold!"

"I LIKE DA CO'D."

I stared in awe of his brutal honestly. I consider myself very open and willing to tell it like it is, but this guy made me look painfully shy. Scared of this tiny, angry man, I snuck into the Stop and Shop and made my way to my first destination: The coffee shop.

The Dunkin's counter girl, or as I affectionately called her, "Brace Face," screamed, "HELP YOU NEXT?" in her lispy, broken English. I ordered my medium iced coffee with extra skim and regular sugar with a styrofoam cup and happily ventured deeper into the heart of Stop and Shop.

I picked up a bag of Goldfish as a snack to munch on throughout the day, among other portable lunch items, and made my way over to the one open cash register. I understand that it was 7:45 in the morning, but be prepared for the morning rush, people! The cashier scanned and re-scanned the same can of soup for a good two minutes because the machine wouldn't read the bar code. That's what manual UPC entry is for, honey.

It was then that I felt a presence behind me. I have a sixth sense for whether or not I'll like someone in my general vicinity. Some call it "being judgmental," I call it being a good judge of character. I sensed something creepy behind me, and so, I turned around to investigate. Turns out, it was a little old woman with long, dirty hair which looked like she hadn't washed the goop out of it for three years.

"I'm collecting all the baskets!" she announced.

My eye twitched a little at her odor. "...That's nice," I responded.

Now that I think of it, I had strange run-ins at that Stop and Shop even before college. When Dad was undergoing radiation therapy for his prostate cancer, my mom would ask me to help her grocery shop every week. I was about 15 years old. One Monday night, she picked me up after she left work so we could get some goodies for the week ahead.

We completed our shopping adventure for the most part and all that was left was to check out. Mommie Dearest and I entered a line and waited. Usually, my mother is good at picking the quickest lines. Having worked in a grocery store from 14 years old to 26, she believes she has developed a 6th sense for the quickest ways in and out of a grocery store. She also pushes the baggers out of the way and bags the groceries herself so that they don't "SQUASH THE BREAD."

Oh, and don't forget: "Coah, frozen goes with frozen! Keep all the cold stuff togethah!"

In this particular instance, my mother's supernatural grocery store powers led us astray. We stood in line for about ten minutes, when my mother and her Irish Whisper went to work and screamed, "What is this chick, retahded?"

"Mom, Jesus Christ!" I snapped. "I'm sure that the cashier can HEAR YOU."

"Coah, when I was a cashi-ah, I was the fastest cashi-ah in the stoah. My totals at the end of the night were always high-ah than everyone else's!"

I waved off my mother's recollection of her glory days at the grocery store and waited for the cashier to assist us. She said hi and seemed nice enough. But then, she stopped in the middle of ringing up a box of cookies and said, "I wish I could do this under water."

Mommie Dearest and I were floored. "What?" I asked. "Under water?"

"Yeah, I'm swimming in the Special Olympics," she explained, "so I apply everything I do to being under water! I'm the only girl going to Hong Kong!" A glazed look appeared in her eyes as she drifted off into fantasies about swimming with the dolphins.

Meanwhile, Lois and I were shocked that she actually WAS retahded. I could tell that, for once, my mother knew she was in the wrong by the horrified look on her face. I walked away to visit the Dunkin' Donuts. I knew that if I remained there any longer, I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. I mean, I can't keep a STRAIGHT face, anyway, but work with me here.

When I returned, the transaction had ended and the groceries were bagged and in the cart. "Have a nice night," the cashier said.

My mother brushed her off and mumbled, "You too."

But the special cashier didn't hear my mother and snapped, "I SAID, 'HAVE A NICE NIGHT!'"

"I SAID, 'YOU TOO,'" my mother retorted.

And that was the story of the time my mother yelled at a retarded woman.