“You don’t
know what a Weeble is?” The older cashier at register 9 asks her young
colleague at register 8.
“Nope,” the
young lady replies.
“Weebles
wobble but they don’t fall down!” The lady customer standing in front of me sings.
Registers 9
and 7 laugh in surprised pleasure, while Register 8 just looks bewildered, as
if wondering whether or not she should call Security.
Christmas is
coming; I am in line at a local retailer, waiting to purchase a few childish presents
for my kids.
“What about
Duck Tales?” Register 7 asks.
“Duck Tales,
A-Woo-Ooo!” The strange lady chimes.
“Nope,”
Register 8 replies with a shake of her head.
“Barney?”
This from Register 7.
“Oh, I love Barney!
Barney was my jam!” The crazy lady pipes with glee.
I shudder
with posttraumatic stress. Hello, my name is Matthew, and I am a
Barney survivor…
“Wasn’t
Barney that touchy-feely purple pedophile dinosaur?” The girl asks, eliciting a contempt-laden stare from Register 7.
After a pause, the trial of
Register 8 continues.
“Mrs.
Beasley?”
“Stretch
Armstrong?”
The young
cashier looks about to cry, but her two co-workers won’t quit.
“Care
Bears?”
“What about
Monchichis?”
Damn you Register 9, now I’m going to
be singing “Monchichi, Monchichi, Oh so soft and cuddly!” for the rest of the
week…
“She’s never
even seen A Christmas Story,” Register 9 declares with condemnation in her
voice, a hanging judge passing sentence.
Don’t judges in England put a lace
doily on top of their head when they sentence someone to death?
“What?” The
lady customer is mortified. “You haven’t seen A Christmas Story?” She stands
with her arms out at an angle, waddles a couple of steps forward and cries, “I
can’t move my arms!”
Lace doily to register 9, lace doily
to register 9 please…
“I didn’t
have a lot of toys, and we didn’t watch television. I read a lot of books,”
explains the cashier, hoping for exoneration, or at the very least a lighter
sentence.
Oh dear…you’ve gone and poured fuel
on your own death pyre…
“Oh, so you
were one of those kids, too smart to
go outside and have fun, too nerdy to have friends? Must’ve been a great
childhood,” Register 9 scoffs.
“I read books
when I was young, but I also went outside to play and watch TV like normal kids,”
the lady customer says, her voice no longer happy with the singsong of childhood
memories.
Why don’t they ask her about something from this century? I want to jump onto the counter, let loose with a Thundercats battle cry, and come to the poor girl’s defense.
But I don’t.
Register 7
has become very occupied with customers, and appears too busy and perhaps a bit
too embarrassed to offer a defense.
After paying
with a swipe and a jab, the lady customer storms off to towards the exit. As I
watch her huff her way out of the store, I hope that someone parked too close
to her driver’s side door.
The young
cashier begins to scan my purchases, her head hanging low to avoid eye contact
with me. I imagine her alone and crying in the break room later that evening.
“I read a
lot as a kid myself,” I say, injecting a tone of support into my voice.
She looks
up, and I am relieved to see her half-smile at me. After a moment she adds, “We
didn’t have a lot of money, so my parents took us to the library for free fun.”
“Nothing
wrong with that,” I assure her.
“I think I would
rather read than do anything else,” she tells me.
“It’s been a
while, but there was a time I felt pretty much the same way,” I admit.
“You should
try to get that feeling back.”
“Maybe I’ll
make that my one and only New Year’s resolution,” I think out loud while swiping
my debit card.
“That’s a
great idea,” she says.
I pick up my
gifts, a bag of Hot Wheels cars and a hula-hoop.
“Merry
Christmas!” The young lady say with a confident smile.
I smile back at her. “Merry Christmas to you!”
The smile
stays with me all the way out the parking lot, where it turns to a frown as I
approach my car. After a moment of thought, the frown turns into a chuckle.
Someone has
parked his or her oversize SUV a little too close to my driver’s side door.
Merry Christmas!
