The cashier girl is nice but still new to the system. I want two breasts, mac ‘n’ cheese and mashed potatoes. Do you want to subsitute… No, I just want what I ordered. I don’t care if I have to pay more to get what I want. The girl rings me up for a breast, thigh, mac ‘n’ cheese and mashed potatoes. Whatever, close enough.

The chicken guy waves me over. They don’t have any extra-crispy breast. Fine, give me original. It’s practically the same. He goes over and examines the chicken parts. He comes back and tells me they don’t have any original either. I am getting irritated and he confesses that they don’t have breast of any type.

Why do things have to be so complicated? I deal with this kind of shit at work all day. Things go wrong and you can either do it the “corporate way” or my way. The corporate way involves a lot of gesticulating and managers until the customer finally gets fed up and leaves. My way is to cut the crap and do something. I don’t care if I am supposed to do it or not.

I lean in close to the chicken guy. Listen, I know what you are going through. Just throw in a few of those odd pieces over there and lets just call it good. The chicken guy looks unsure and looks toward the manager. You can call your manager but you know it is going to take all day. The chicken guy shrugs and throws a few drum sticks in the box. Thinking for yourself might get you fired at some places but it guarantees that you will succeed at life.

You’re welcome chicken man.

I hear comments like that all day. Sighs, moans and arms flailing around. I use to try and get customers like her to elaborate. I wanted to be helpful and sympathetic. You know, make things right. I don’t anymore. Customers that drop little hints like that tend to be seriously passive-aggressive. They think you are arguing with them when you are only trying to understand why they are upset. They are mad about something but they are not going to tell you what will make them happy.

Telling people what I want them to do seems so obvious after working in retail. This thing is a load of crap so I want my money back. People really appreciate brevity. It seems counter-intuitive but do not sugar coat things. It is not rude to simply state the facts. The employee I dealt with was a total douche-nozzle and made me angry. I want to speak to a manager. Telling people what you want gets shit done.

I was standing around at work the other day thinking about the problems with pooping. Back in the days of cannons and musket guns you stuffed wadding in the gun before you put in the projectile. Taking a crap is a lot like a cannon. I wondered why someone had not invented wadding for your butt?

I remember seeing my grandma mix that orange powder in water. It was called Metamucil and I always thought it was just for old people. I went out the other day and bought some. Let me tell you, this stuff is amazing. Remember those little pills you put in water as kid and that turned into sponge animals? Metamucil is a lot like that. You add it to water and drink it. As soon as it is in your colon it balloons up helps push the crap out. It is sort of like bubble wrap for your colon.

I can now eat as horribly as I want. I drink an extra concentrated glass of Metamucil and the next day the poop just flies out of my butt. I don’t even need to wipe. Seriously. This Metamucil stuff is self-cleaning. It scrubs your butthole on the way out. It is absolutely amazing. I miss you grandma.

For starters her answer to any problem was that you needed to open your heart to Jesus. Need to add a spouse to your health insurance? Jesus. Want to change your direct deposit? Jesus. Then there was her affinity for black men. She was asking a few male employees if they wouldn’t mind taking their shirts off.

It was good knowing you HR lady that looked like a catfish.

I had a job once as a security guard at night. It was crappy pay and no health insurance. The only positive thing about the job was I was being paid to be an asshole. There is something addictive about being an asshole. All night I told people to get lost. If they tried to quote the Consitution or any reason they felt entitled to be on our property I simply informed them they could go right ahead and lick my butthole.

Unfortunately being a cashier is different. You have to tell people stuff they do not want to hear while being nice. You tell these crazy dog owners to get their dog out of the store and they go crazy. Here is how I would counter some arguments about the no-dog rule if I was a security guard:

• I have always brought my dog here before.
• Women didn’t always have the right to vote. Personally I don’t think it is a good idea but things have changed. Deal with it.
• I will take my business elsewhere if I can’t bring my dog in.
• You standing here is costing us more money than we bring in from your purchases. I’m sure our competitor will love being the sole purveyor of your Mountain Dew and Spicy Cheetos.
• Where do you expect me to leave my dog… tied outside? …in the car?
• I am not detecting the usage of sarcasm so I will assume you are simply stupid. Do you take your dog with you when you go to the doctor’s office or grocery store?

As a cashier you are expected to be mealy mouthed and reason with these people. We really want your money. Please treat us like dirt. Thank you and have a nice day!

It happens the same way every time. I will be standing there staring at my coworker at the other register. It is creepy but that is all there is to do. Stand and stare. A customer will approach and I wave them down. They ignore me and go to the other register. I hear my coworker and the customer squeal in unison because they recognize each other from highschool. All I can think about is what if that had happened to me. A few times it has.

Someone asks me if I went to Crappy Crap Elementary School. I try not to get alarmed. I remain calm and rationalize that they heard me talking about Crappy Crap one day, which is something I would never do. They went to Crappy Crap too. Denial is still easier so maybe they were in a different grade or had a different teacher. No, they had Mrs. Crabapple too. They just can not let it go. Fine. Lets just lay it all out in the open then.

It is me! The fat kid named Sam. In the mornings I use to stand in the bushes in front of the school. I stood there hunched over while holding my backpack because my fat-kid body was too round for the straps. Everyone thought I was touching myself in the bushes but that was just a clever coverstory I started myself. I needed the extra fifteen minutes in the morning before school to compose myself so I would not burst into tears. It was hard being a fat kid before it became trendy. The front door of the school felt like the gates of Hell.

My old classmate gets offended that I do not remember him. He helpfully tries to remind me of things but I am getting nothing. I have actually met a few classmates from Crappy Crap but I do not remember any of them. I do not even try to remember anymore. I just pretend to rack my brain for memories then shrug and give them a rueful smile. All I actually remember are a few locations and a couple of memories from high school. My entire childhood just slid off and disappeared into an inky pool of blackness.

I was the smartest kid in the class. What the hell happened? I guess I just made some bad decisions in life. I am now even more overweight and hunched than before. How about that. I am a cashier. My classmate is an engineer. That is great. I always wanted to be one of those. He has a nice family. I have Type 2 Diabetes. He leaves reminiscing about the good old days while I check out the next customer.

The problem is the HR lady looks remarkably like a catfish. She will be talking to you about something super seriously important and all you can think about is catfish. White catfish, yellow catfish, brown catfish, HR catfish… Just when you think you are about to make it… it happens.

You will be looking at the catfish talking and concentrating hard on not laughing. Yes, important forms, health insurance… Yes, ma’am. Everything is going fine and then you hear it. Whirrrrp. It is the beginning of your favorite dubstep song. You know you are going to lose it. Whirp, whirp, whirpirpirp… wub wub wub wubububububub… wubbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb wub. The protruding baby-blue catfish eyes. How do they not fall out of her head? Whiiiiiirp.

You start to laugh. You can not help it. It is just too funny. The HR lady angrily swims off. What can you do?

The woman spun around and gave the machine the most prudish look I have ever seen. After a couple of seconds of staring the machine down she snapped back around. I would have laughed had I not been so startled. Her mannerism was absolutely comical. God! Why don’t these men enamored by my beauty just give it up? This lady was not exactly a looker. She had the glasses and hair that define miserly librarian.

I have to give the cheeky key machine my accolades. Your sharp wit was not unnoticed.

Once I had a coworker ask me if I was off on a certain day. I told him that I was. Naturally the next question was if I might work his shift on that certain day in exchange for him working another shift of mine. I said that was fine with me. I was expecting him to go fill out the necessary paper work for me to sign but he never did. That is part of the deal where I work if you want to switch shifts with someone. After all it was not me who needed to change shifts. I figured he had changed his mind and I forgot all about it.

A couple weeks later I get a call from a manager on my day off. He wanted to know why I was not at work. Apparently I was covering for my coworker and I was expected to work. I go to work and everyone acts like I am such an inconsiderate jerk. I had to endure their snarky remarks about how nice it was I could join the rest of them that actually showed up to work on time.

We all stood around and gawked at the key machine. I noticed that it had an antenna on the top of it. I speculated that this is what the machine uses to phone back to its mother ship. At night all the key machines will network together and plan their invasion. The key machine also makes these rather odd chirping noises every twenty seconds under the guise of attracting the customer’s attention. I am not fooled. Clearly an auditory mind control unit.

Assuming that the key machines were not sent to kill us I can see room for improvement. Take an industrial strength Roomba and stick the key machine on it. Let it rove the aisles for potential customers. I think unleashing a 400 pound four by six heat-seeking vending machine on the general retail populace is an superb idea.

Imagine stocking your department and hearing the chirp noises of the Roomba-key. You see it go pass at the end of the aisle and feel a wave of relief that it missed you. You go back to lifting those heavy boxes in top stock. Everything on the floor is silent and so you feel safe to tackle that last box you have been putting off doing till the end. It is that bloated box of dubious structural integrity. It has been skewered by the forklift and then condensation dripped on it from the air conditioning. It is full of sharp pointy Christmas ornaments. At the exact moment you are holding the box over your head with trembling arms you hear a solemn “chirp.”

It is too late to do anything. You know you are going to die. The Roomba-key smashes into your rolling ladder. It feels like you are going to tip over. You panic and start to spasm. The moldy box bursts and pointy Christmas ornaments send you over the railing. You lay broken and bleeding on the floor. Before going unconscious you see the Roomba-key deftly avoid a cardboard floor display and disappear around the corner.