[neon sign on my forehead]
Today is the first day of my period.
[/neon sign on my forehead]
TMI? I think not.
I went to Walgreens this morning to buy girlie supplies. I collected all of my purchases and dutifully went to the register. The checker-bitch was scanning my items and one item would not scan.
Checker-bitch picks up the PA microphone and says…and I quote,“I NEED A PRICE CHECK ON REGISTER ONE…PLAYTEX…SUPER PLUS…BOX OF 40”
As the line behind me lengthened to mass proportions, no one answered her call.
Finally, another checker-bitch hollers from the back of the store, “WAS THAT THE PLAYTEX?”
“YEA, SUPER PLUS”
“TWENTY?”
“NO, FORTY.”
“OH. OK. THOSE ARE $9.98.”
So, since half of Orlando knows, I feel it necessary to share with you, 30,000 of my closest friends, that my period started today.
If that had have happened when I went in for my first pack of condoms as a nervous teen I would have shit myself and woke up in a hospital. Weren’t you tempted to address the throng? “Well now that we’re all more acquainted I’d like to invite you all over for tea and biscuits!” Yeah, leave your inhibitions at the door when entering Walgreens. Sorry. Agreed, bad form.
Nah, I just buy the 40-count because it’s more economical.
I would guess it’s more the fact that we’re vacationing near the Wonderful World of Disney than anything else. Frankly, I don’t know what the real price should have been. By the time the two employees had their shout-down, I was ready to be way the hell away from there.
Unfortunately, this is the only form of amusement available for some retail workers. Loud, often repeated price checks on tampons/pads, condoms, lubricants (sexual or otherwise), hemmerhoid remedies, and other assorted “embarassing” goods are a common thing, for obvious reasons. Often, as you saw today, they’ll work in teams to keep the gag running as long as possible.
Did you do anything to the particular shnook in question? Doesn’t sound like it. For some of them, doesn’t matter.
Working in retail (see various weekly threads on the subject, almost always here in the pit) can be soul destroying, mind numbing, dignity eradicating work. Doing so in a “tourist attraction area” is usually twice as bad. Eventually, your only recourse for mental health purposes is trying to make someone else’s day as lousy as your own.
Sounds like it worked.
My sympathy.
But, look at the bright side. You got to leave Walgreens, after only a short visit. He was stuck there for hours, jockeying his register, and watching more cash than he’ll earn in a week pass through his hands.
[sub]Damn near without exception, the only things I ever pick up that get price checked at the local grocery joint are “feminine hygiene” stuff for the Mrs. and lubricant (usually otherwise). It happens so often I can usually quote the price to the register jockey, ruining the game for him, and turning the tables with a delicious side dish of irony.[/sub]
First of all, when compared to any other major store (Kmart, Walmart, etc.) Walgreens prices sucks the sweat off a dead dogs balls. How they are staying in business is beyond me.
The Op insists Walgreens hires fucking idiots. Truer words were never typed.
About 3 years ago my wife went in to use that self serve thingamabob that you use to enlarge/reproduce photos. She was trying to enlarge a picture of her Mother and HERSELF (as an infant). Right in the middle of the process this fuckhead assistant reaches under the scanner cover and grabs the original out and starts screaming at her that she’s breaking the law because she doesn’t have a permission slip to reproduce that photo from the person whom took the picture! That would be kind of hard to get as it was her Grandmother who died over 30 years ago!
We got some very nice items via free coupons because of a well written letter I sent to the corporate offices. The offending Walgeens, by the way, was on Hwy 100 & Greenfield Avenue, West Allis, Wisconsin.
pkbites, you do realize that the person with the scanner machine may have had a legitimate issue, even if he was stupid in his execution? Was it a studio photograph or a snapshot? If a snapshot, then the person was an idiot.
Speaking as someone who got severely reamed out by a manager for photocopying a customer’s cabinet card marked 1881.
Well almost the same, I wasn’t buying tampons, I was buying condoms, and I was 17. It was in Miami, at the only Eckerd Drugs open 24 hours, so naturally the store was packed and my girlfriend sat in the car while I went in and got the goods. I stood in line long enough that I struck up a conversation with the guy behind me in line, so when I finally made it to the front of the line I just casually handed my box of condoms to the cashier, and did not notice anything unusual. Until the store’s PA crackled on and I heard:
I threw in the extra large, they were in fact normal size. The entire line of people started a slow giggle which soon turned into out and out laughter. But the worst part was having to wait there, with everyone around me laughing until the guy in the back got his own microphone and announced the the price for Trojans, 12 pack, lubricated was $8.99.
If this happened today I would probably make a crack about how I was only buying 12 to get me through the night. But at the time all I could do was turn a bright shade of red and literally run out of the store, with the condoms of course.
Is anybody else reminded of the “Bloom County” strip that featured Opus getting this type of treatment? The checkout person comments loudly on all his purchases, as Opus becomes mroe and more mortified. “Odor Eaters? Yep, nothin’ worse than stinky feet. 'Cept hemmorhoids. Oh, I see you got them too. (Grabs microphone) I need a price check on 'Extra-Wispy Chest Hair Mousse.”
The kicker, of course, comes in the end panel. Opus is handing the sack of purchases to Steve Dallas outside the store, and says, “You, sir, may do your own shopping next time.”
A message to those individuals working in retail that feel it necessary to humiliate the same people that make it so you can get a paycheck every week…GET ANOTHER FUCKING JOB.
It’s a sad life you fucks live if that’s all you have to entertain yourselves. :mad:
If I ever went into a store to purchase a potentially embarrassing product and they needed to do a price check I’d have to walk out if they announced it over the intercom. The embarrassment would be too much to bear. Certainly the employees could be more discreet than this, couldn’t they? Any store managers out there who work in retail? Do your stores have policies or guidelines regarding handling such matters? I could never go back to such a store and wouldn’t want to do business with them again, anyway, if they embarrassed me like this.
funny, when I went to Walgreens two weeks ago to pick up tampons, the lady behind the counter was friendly and polite. Even wished me a good weekend.
Wishing me a good weekend was kinda stupid, in retrospect…the tampons were for my girlfriend. How good a time did she think I was going to have?
Seriously, the key word here is “Orlando.” IMHO, the hospitality industry snapped up all of the decent service workers, leaving the rest to work in the drugstores, supermarkets and fast food joints. You’re lucky the cashier spoke English.
It was a snapshot, taken with a regular camera by her grandma.
But even if that manager was “legally” right, the complaint is that he made a very LOUD fuss in front of everyone in the store about how my wife was breaking the law, embarassing the shit out of her. Their coprprate offices agreed with us that this spectacle was uncalled for and sent a letter of appology and some gift certificates.
Let me say what I’ve been saying for years: All relationships are about power. This is a theory of psychology, and while it is only a theory, I accept it. That manager was getting his power fix by doing that, it had nothing to do with concern about copyright laws. If it had, he would have been far more tactfull than attackfull!
Well, I’ve encountered my share of clods behind the counter at Walgreen’s and elsewhere, but it never bothered me too much because I’m a bit of an insensitive brute myself.
During my most recent long-term relationship, seems like I was always running down to the shops to pick up tampons for my honey, and I never thought twice about it. If some clown had tried to have a little fun at my expense, well, there’s plenty of ways to make them look like an idiot too.
BTW, totally off-topic and not directed at the OP, and I guess I’m being a real guy here, but it totally baffles me why a woman, who basically knows to the day when her period is gonna start, would not, you know, check inventory a few days ahead, so as not to be caught out when the time comes. But my honey, so wonderful in so many other ways, never would.
Was it a woody allen movie where he bought a few regular magazines and slipped the “dirty” one under them and the
lady cashier got on the intercom and hollered “Hey George, How much is ‘Orgasm’?” It might have been the movie “Banananas”
