I usually try to remember to bring a couple of bucks when I shop at the commissary, but sometimes I forget. I usually use my debit card to pay for everything, since I don’t like to carry cash around.
The people at the commissary here act like they’d rather kill you than let you carry your own stuff out to your car. I tried once. If you only have a couple of bags, it’s fine. I asked once if I could take the cart out to my car and the lady paused and made all kinds of excuses. I told her that I’d bring it back and she said that it was a long way to walk with the baby. I told her that wasn’t a problem, and she told me it would be better for me to drive my car up to the front of the store and she’d meet me there. Whatever.
Anyway, I had that same lady the next time I shopped there. When we got out to the car, I opened the trunk and went to the passenger door and sat my bag down, and then put my daughter in her carseat in the back. The lady said “Here’s your bread.” so when I got done with Em, I grabbed the bread and put it in the backseat. When I walked to the back of the car, she was trying to shut the trunk, but part of one of the bags was in the way and she tried to shut it and shut the bag in it (Crushing the box of food, I noticed, when I got home. No big deal, it was just noodles, but still. She also almost slammed my hand in it, since I was trying to move the bag back into the trunk), and the trunk popped back open. She slammed it again and it shut. I told her thanks, and before I could say anything else, she said, very rudely, “We work for tips.” and spun around and walked off.
Since I actually had money that day, but was I wrong in not doing so because she was such a rude fucking bitch? All I did was tell her thanks. My purse was in the car since I had to sit it down to put Em in, and even so, she didn’t even allow me enough time to say “Hold on while I grab my purse” or even allow me enough time to grab some cash from my pocket before she got rude with me. It really pissed me off. It pissed me off even more when I went to get my groceries out of the trunk and realized that when she bagged them, she stuck every single canned good I bought into one bag (9 cans plus one big jar of spaghetti sauce.), then dropped it into another bag and tied it shut. Tying it shut means that I’ve got two tiny loops of handle to carry this heavy bag with. Add that to the fact that she almost slammed my hand in the car, she did slam my food in the trunk and she was rude and I’ve decided that if I ever see her beginning to bag my groceries again, I’m going to ask for someone else.
I don’t like being expected to pay someone to bag a couple of bags of groceries and then carry them to the car, especially when you are made to believe that you can’t carry your own bags out. If it’s raining/snowing then I’m up for it, but on ordinary days, I’d rather do it myself. The whole idea of a “tip” is negated when the “tip” is no longer optional. I don’t shop there too often anymore, except for select items, because there is a grocery store in town with gas pumps, and they offer specials where you buy an item and get X cents off per gallon on your next gas purchase there, up to 15 gallons. My little car doesn’t hold that much, and last time I shopped there I got a nineteen cent discount per gallon on my next gas purchase. They also usually have some of the lowest gas prices in town.
