I remember once when I bought just a few items, among them a Hostess honeybun and a diet soda.
The cashier says, “explain to me how these two items go together.”
She was being “funny”, but she did pause and look to me for an answer.
mmm
I’ll confess to striking up pet-related conversations with someone else in line who has pet food in their cart. Pet people seem not to mind chatting about their “kids”. 
Do people actually like chatty cashiers? It’s not an Asian thing and it’s hard for me to adjust when I visit home.
I’ve known some of my cashiers for 20 plus years. They’ve watched my kids grow up. Kind of hard not to get to know them on at least some personal level.
I want a cashier to be friendly, but not chatty. I once bought a jar of gefilte fish, and the cashier asked “Is this stuff any good?” I replied that if you’ve never had it, I guarantee you’ll hate it.
I don’t like other people commenting on my food either. OTOH I don’t mind if someone, seeing the cat food I’m buying, asks about my cat.
I prefer not to have anyone talk to me about anything.
That said, I recognise that all of these are just people being friendly. I suspect you were wooshed by the cashier in example #2, no sane person would ask that question seriously.
My intentionally rude responses to these comments:
- No, I’m just supporting the potato farmers.
- Well, I couldn’t find the fish flavored gums and jellies, so….
- Here, you need this more than me (hand her the ice cream)
- Yes, we are. Meet you in the bathroom in 5 minutes?
It’s called “being out in public” for a reason. If you don’t want to interact with people, then do the world a favor, and don’t step outside your front door.
How about not remarking to complete strangers on their purchases? It’s called minding your own damn business.
I’m fine with making small talk to people and do it all the time. But it’s poor manners to remark on a person’s purchases.
During one grocery trip I bought several frozen dinners. The cashier remarked that I must live alone.
I assure you, I did not get whooshed. 
I only made up that outlandish example to represent several different times when the same thing happened: I would buy various, completely different items (as one often does when shopping) and a cashier (a different cashier each time) would ask if I was combining them or concocting some recipe that involved all of them together. In each case, the cashier was being 100% earnest. This became a frequent enough occurrence that I once remarked to my wife, “I’d better not put shoe polish in my cart, or they’ll think I’m mixing it into the ground beef!”
I only used chewing gum, strawberry jelly, and raw fish in the example because I was trying to think of three things that absolutely would not go together–which is more difficult than you’d think, given the modern trend of combining foods that, in the past, were not traditionally thought of as going together.
Ok. I didn’t realise they weren’t actual examples.
That happened to me, too. I said “Yes, what gave it away? All the frozen dinners?”
She said, “No, because you’re ugly as sin.”
Ba-Dump! tsssh
I’m here all week, folks! Try the veal!
In the past 15 years I could count the number of cashiers I’ve seen on one hand, and usually that’s in a place either so small and specialized that there wouldn’t be much opportunity to buy anything unusual OR exactly the opposite. Other shoppers? Maybe it’s happened a couple times, and that WOULD annoy me but nothing stands out. Maybe avoidance of this very thing is why pre-COVID I pretty much only shopped online and pre-dawn via self-checkouts at 24/7 stores.
I asked a friend who has been a cashier at a large supermarket for years about #2. She said that part of their training is to not make comments about peoples purchases. Make eye contact, smile, respond to comments about the weather and sympathise with complaints about long queues, but keep on swiping those bar codes.
This poses a dilemma for those of us who work as cashiers.
My employer requires me to engage with customers. If a manager is watching and I am NOT chatting with you I can be punished for that lack (seriously - I once almost got written up because I wasn’t speaking to a customer who was completely deaf and communicating with me by written word. So glad THAT nitwit manager is no longer at the store where I work). And, seeing as I don’t really know you, that doesn’t leave much to chat about other than the weather or your purchase choices.
So when I say “Hi” then ask about coupons/offers, then offer some additional comment it really, really, really isn’t to annoy you or piss you off - it’s because my employer requires me to do that. When employees in a store keep asking “can I help you?” it’s because we’re required to do that and if we don’t do enough of it the entire store can get called on the carpet for that lack.
Now, yeah, some customers obviously don’t want to engage so I will cut my required script to the minimum. I avoid comments like #2 because that’s just stupid and rude. I try to stick to what @Kimstu calls blather but I am required to blather by my employer whether or not you or I want to blather. That said, there’s a right way and a wrong way to make blather and we are currently having a problem with a new hire who has a gift for saying the wrong thing.
Like I said - American cashiers are often required to be chatty by their employers.
Here are a few tips for you curmudgeons to help avoid the worst of the chatty cashiers:
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“I’m in a hurry” - doesn’t always work, but I’ll cut the blather to the absolute minimum required by my job and focus on getting you out the door. That’s me - not everyone gets the hint with this one.
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“No coupons, no member card, and I’m in a hurry” - this does not always work but at my store it allows me to cut most of the otherwise required script. Pretty much distills it down to “hello” and “Your total is $X.xx, have a nice day.”
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“Don’t want a conversation, just ring me up.” - borders on rude, but it’s direct and again, most cashiers will deliver some silence with that.
I use the two myself as a customer. At one store around here known for the lengthy script required of the cashiers, one time I went to pay for an item and said “I know your boss wants you use a script but I am in a crisis - just ring it up without the speech and I’ll tell management how wonderful you are.” She did and yes, I did follow up and praise her, saying I got exactly the service I wanted.
Now, on a certain level I get that arguably it isn’t fair that you have to take this extra step. On the other hand, I couldn’t foresee the need for that ESP course so I’m not a mindreader. My employer tells me I need to serve the needs of the customer but I can’t do that unless I know what your needs are. I get all sorts of requests: “As few bags as possible, load 'em up”, “I need light bags”, “put the eggs, bread, and bananas each in their own bag”, “Sorry, the kid was hungry and ate the banana” ::: looks at limp peel in their hand ::: “but I’ll pay for it now”. “Do you have an opaque bag for the adult diapers?”, “I’m sorry the reusable bag I just handed to you has a lot of goat hair on it, is that OK?” (no, I am not making that one up), “I need help getting this in my car”, “My kid just threw up, do you have some paper towels?”
So, if you can let me know (preferably without anger or ire directed at me personally) that you don’t want small talk I’ll do my best to accommodate you. But you have to communicate with me in some fashion to cut the chatter so if I’m questioned on it I can say “that’s what the customer wanted”, otherwise I am obligated to talk to you as a condition of my employment.
Oh, and if you are yourself a cashier please do NOT call me “hon”, “sweetheart” or “young lady”. ThankYouVeryMuch.
I have my In Public Hat on when I’m in public. I treat everything as pleasantries, not as opportunities to be angry. None of the examples would annoy me at all. I’m not a pugnacious person.
Yesterday the manager at Tractor Supply referred to me as “young lady” (I’m 65 and had at least 20 years on him). I had a bit of an invisible eye roll there but since he clearly wasn’t having the best day at work – not only did some careless employee get my pick-up order wrong but his clever hand-held credit-card reader didn’t read anything, and two more people with snafus approached while he was trying to straighten out mine – it passed without a ripple.
I lived in Manhattan from age 3 to age 6, late 70s-early 80s. I’ll always remember what my dad taught me about dealing with people who tried to talk to me on the street: “Don’t respond, don’t make eye contact, and just keep walking.” Now, I’m no longer a kid and I no longer live in New York, but I still follow his advice: if someone I don’t know engages me, I don’t talk, don’t make eye contact, and if possible, I keep on walking. So far, it’s worked out just fine for me.
I don’t do small talk usually, plus I’m 100% self-checkout. Additionally, if I’m out grabbing groceries I probably didn’t bother to put in my hearing aid, so any mindless blather will be totally missed.
I’d be happy if no one commented on my food choices, in particular cashiers at the supermarket.
An exception would be if they are unfamiliar with something and ask about it. I don’t mind explaining the mysteries of okra.