I thought I picked the correct cashier / God Bless

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I went to the supermarket the other night just as I do every week. And as someone who likes to avoid awkward situations, but frequently seems to attract them, I sized up my cashier options and selected the older gentleman standing in lane 14. I’ve utilized his services once or twice before, but not recently. I seemed to remember there was something about him last time; perhaps he told a joke or the person in front of me hassled him about something-- I wasn’t sure, but nothing bad stood out.

My goal was to avoid the cashiers that either comment on my purchases, sing rock music to themselves, insist on bagging one item per bag, or insist on playing Tetris with my groceries and puts the bread, milk, flour, grapes, and frozen veggies in the same bag because they juuussst manage to fit by stretch the plastic bag enough without breaking it. This guy scans the items and lets me bag myself, GREAT! It’s exactly what I want!

So I happily put by groceries on the conveyor belt, quickly organizing them the way I want to bag them and keeping stuff that goes in my garage pantry segregated from the other items. Milk and seltzer first, then I added the tomato sauce, Spaghetti-O’s (don’t judge me), Dinty Moore stew (I heard people say it was good, it’s really not bad), and tuna. I then add the cereal, pasta, rice.

At this point the lady in front of me is completing her transaction and the cashier neatly folds her receipt and says “God Bless” to her. I instantly begin to sweat and remember this guy. I walked right into the awkward situation I was trying to avoid. Dammit! How do you respond to that? I continue loading up the conveyor belt with frozen vegetables, frozen breakfast sandwiches (seriously, stop judging me), and frozen fruit for my wife’s smoothies. All the while thinking, how am I supposed to respond to “God Bless”; when he inevitably sends it my direction? What will I say? What’s appropriate? “You too”, “God Bless you also” or just go with my standard “Thanks, have a good night”? While I try to work this out I move onto the, chicken breast, eggs, spinach, lots of banana’s, yada-yada-yada… I don’t want to make this story too boring and monotonous. Too late perhaps.

The cashier begins scanning the items and I start bagging according to plan. Heavy stuff in the cart first, then lighter stuff, then the frozen stuff, eggs by themselves, and then fresh fruit/veggies. Here we go, we begin completing the transaction and he says “$108.55”. Dammit! How do the groceries always cost so much? Well, what are you gonna do… so I complete the purchase (via credit card if you’re curious). The cashier neatly folds the receipt and HERE WE GO… I’m ready for God to Bless me! The cashier looks me in the eye and says, “Do you ever eat at McDonald’s?” Clearly thrown off, I respond with “Thanks, er WHAT, huh… not very often” and stand there for a moment before heading home.

On my way home this really bugged me because:
A) I had literally just eaten McDonald’s for dinner shortly before my grocery shopping adventure. Maybe he smelled it on me or I had grease stains on my shirt from the fries.
B) I felt bad for lying to the guy because, yes dammit, I have been eating a lot of food from the Golden Arches lately… I was just caught off guard by the question and a little embarrassed about eating at McDonald’s once a week for the past couple months. It’s just a convenient option to get food from there.

After I got home I and thought about it for a bit, I remembered that there were coupons on the back of the receipts from that supermarket for nearby businesses. And there was in fact a McDonald’s coupon there so I assume that’s what prompted the unexpected exchange.

2

God bless you, biometricks. But you forgot the bread!

3

“I didn’t sneeze.” ???
There are two cashiers where I usually shop; one has some form of Tourette’s where all of a sudden he’ll look like a broken robot, where he’ll go thru a series of tapping/touching things or picking up & putting down the next thing on the convayer belt (that are not at all productive); then his brain will reconnect & he’ll scan the next item. Invariably it happens with the last yogurt to go into the cold bag before I can put it in the cart & start another bag.
The other, he’s got BO that could gag an elephant. He’s always got the shortest line so you roll the cart in & realize, "Oh $#!t, it’s him. Then you get in front of him as you roll your cart thru & think, "Oh good, he got the message & is using deodorant finally! Then you take a couple more steps to the end where you can bag your groceries…Put it this way, I know the HVAC air circulation patterns because when you get to the end where you can bag your groceries, not only do your eyes water, but you knees buckle, your skin blisters, your lungs burn. :eek:

I’m what, 4’ away from the guy & I’m gagging? I keep debating whether to say anything to management, but they gotta know, right?

4

A lot of places now offer self-service checkout–where you scan the items yourself; see if you can find one.

5

Interesting you should posts this today; just last night I decided that I’m going to start responding to that or “have a blessed day” with “As Salaam Alaikum.”

Can’t wait to see what responses I get.

6

Well, at least you didn’t have a fry still stuck to your face or something.

I worked at Safeway for 12 years, the first 6 as a checker. You would have loved my line. I had a lot of customers who would only come through my line if I was there (I don’t know what they did when I wasn’t there ;)). I bagged efficiently and sensibly (gallon jugs either got no bag or were put in a bag by themselves, food products separate from non-food, cleaning products separate from everything, cold items together, very light crushable items like bread and chips together, produce together, not dumping 20 cans into one bag, etc.) and loaded bags back into the cart in a non-stupid manner (heavy bags go in first, light bags go on top; duh!). I moved faster than all the other checkers and I never wasted time with chit-chat. My line of full carts often moved faster than the Express line.

It was definitely one of those times I was really really good at something I hated.

7

Gesundheit!

8

I know a Piggly-Wiggly where you’d stand an even chance of being shot.

How about “Sim sim salibim!”?

9

Non response: “Have a good night”

I’ve moved to an area where grocery bagging skills are non-existent. It drives me batty. I often think I should go into business as a bagging consultant. Even if I don’t get rich at it, I’ll have the immense satisfaction of saving other shoppers the intense rage that comes from having your bananas put in the same bag with pointy and/or heavy items.

10

I always go with “Baruch hu, u’voroch shemo.”

11

I don’t think it would be rude not to respond at all (as the transaction is over, and you are leaving), unless you do it with a death glare. But if you feel a response is warranted, a simple “Thank you” is quite adequate. If you feel strongly enough about it that you don’t want to thank them, the above post is a good option.

Yesterday I stopped off to pick up a couple of things on my way home and decided to grab a bunch of flowers. The young lady cashier (probably at least 10 years my junior) came out with the classic “oh, are those for me?”. What I told my wife I said (and wish I had said): “They could be if I weren’t happily married.” What I actually said: “What time do you finish your shift? Because if it’s 10pm, I don’t think they’ll last that long out of water.” She took it in the spirit it was intended (which was just to say something that avoided an awkward situation - I didn’t want to imply she was ugly, nor that I was potentially interested - which is why the first option would have been much better).

12

One Christmas I was so tired of library patrons saying, “Merry Christmas!” that I said “And a joyous Hanukkah” to an older woman. She said, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” and hurried out the door.
I felt guilty for almost five minutes.

13

Store cashier here. And I’m a pagan.

When a customer says “God bless you” I just say "You too. "Or if they say “Have a Nice Day” or “Happy Holiday” or “Good Day” or damn near anything else.

This week I was telling all the obviously Jewish customers “Have a good holiday” and several shot back “You too” before thinking about what I said.

14

“Yom tov”?

I’ll be the first to ask: “Obviously Jewish”? They were wearing kippas or had payot? :slight_smile:

15

Obligatory XKCD comic.

16

Say thank you, or smile and nod your head.

17

Actually, that’s usually the first thing said in an Arab greeting; the response is usually waʿalaykumu as-salām. And yes, I am being picky, but it’s the only Arabic I picked up in 4 years living in Abu Dhabi.

But yeah, while I’ll usually just say 'you too" as a generic response, I’ll have to try that out.

18

So, in other words, he didn’t want God to bless YOU?!

19

Well, there’s also the Jewish customers discussing their plans for Yom Kippur or the like while in line…

We occasionally get Jews wearing yarmulkes, but so far no payot in my area that I’ve seen.

Another Pagan cashier here, I usually take the “have a blessed day” and the like in the spirit intended.

20

We get it all. Men with kippas and payot and women with headscarves and skirts. Of course, this month those buying a bunch of Sukkot decorations is a clue. As are those discussing the holidays.