Cashier Chaos, or HOW DARE YOU

Anthony loved working the registers, even if Rickie, the diminutive cashier from Guam, was shifted up there with him. Sure, Rickie needed many smoke breaks and had to get at least three refills from the coffee shop per shift, but it was a three hour shift after all ("A Three Hour Shift", Anthony sang to himself to the tune of the Theme from "Gilligan's Island". Anthony was nothing if not musically literate).

"If god had meant us to go more than three hours without coffee, we'd have been born with a coffee spigot on our forehead", Rickie always said between gulps of coffee, purposely using the lower-case 'g' just to piss off the one or two religiously devout people who still worked at the book store. No one knew how he could imply a lower-case 'g' orally, but somehow that damn Guamite succeeded.

Anthony would put up with Rickie's disappearances, because working the registers was a welcome respite from some of the other tasks. Anthony was basking in the glow of the Rickie-less checkout area, full of good cheer thinking of the mental image of a coffee urn growing out of Rickie's head spurting hot java goodness everywhere, when a customer had the audacity to interrupt his revelry with a question:

"Yes, I have a book on hold."

He looked, but couldn't see the source of the query.

"Excuse me, hello? Do you have my book?"

Anthony finally saw her, a little old woman even shorter than Rickie (though with no coffee urn growing out of her head), furtively waving her little hand.

"Yes, and what is your name?", Anthony asked.

"Mrs. Fergason"

"Ah... we file under first name... what is your first name?" Anthony innocently asked.

"HOW DARE YOU!", the woman crackled.

"I'm sorry?", Anthony parried.

"HOW DARE YOU call me by my first name! How disrespectful!", she went on.

Anthony tried to explain that the held books were usually filed---

"HOW DARE YOU!!!" --- the old lady interrupted.

---so he just needed the first name ---

"HOW DAAAARE YOU!!!"

---to find the book.

"It's Agnes, but I don't see why that's any business of your's!"

So Anthony, armed with this most private of information, went to retrieve her book, looking in the 'A' cabinet.

There was no book for an Agnes there.

He was starting to get an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He quickly went to look under the 'F's, just in case.

The pit in his stomach, however, just got bigger.

Slowly, and with much trepidation, he approached the little old lady.

He cleared his throat.

"Mrs. Fergason, I'm sorry but you're book is not here."

"HOW DAAARRREEE YOU!" she screeched.

Anthony apologized. He offered to try to find another copy of her book. He called a shift leader. Nothing would placate Mrs Fergason (don't call her Agnes). Belinda, the shift leader, offered to look in the back for Mrs Fergason's book, and after a couple more HOW DARE YOUs, she was off on her quest.

Anthony and Mrs. Fergason waited together in what would have to be described as an "uncomfortable silence" that even Rickie's return with coffee cup in hand and scone in mouth couldn't lighten up.

Finally Belinda returned with a book in hand, the same title that Mrs. Fergsan had put on hold.

"Is this the exact same book that you put on hold for me when I telephoned last week?", Agnes asked.

"Well, no", Belinda started ---

"HOW DAAARRRE YOU!!!!"

Working an info shift was beginning to look better and better.

Whistling While You Work

So, the other day I was in the Buy Area [1] when a customer [2] sauntered in carrying the semi-usual Monday morning garbage bag full of books and other ephemera [3]. So far so good, right?

"Is that all you have to sell today?" I asked, beaming my perfect Buy-Lead beam of a smile, full of teeth and good cheer (Well, okay: I might have grinned a bit, anyway, when I greeted them).

"What, this isn't enough?", the young lad [4] replied to my ill-worded query.

"No, no", I explained, "I was just wondering if you needed help bringing in more stuff [5]" (Note: I didn't actually say "[5]", that's just another footnote (see bottom of post) for your (the reader) benefit. But to continue):

He dropped the bag on the floor, and after complaining about having to show his I.D. and being told that we'd [6] call him over the intercom in about 20 minutes asked where the bathroom was and left, presumably for bigger and better stuff.

All the while this was taking place, Jason [7] (not his real name) was whistling Mozart's complete 40th Symphony, Second Movement [8] and annoying the hell out of some employees and random passer-bys in general. His warblings were fine by me; at least he hadn't disappeared for 20 minutes on a combination smoke/bathroom/coffee shop break like my pricer, a short little guy from Guam [9] named Rickie who had to stand on one of the portable stepping stools just to reach the pricing table. No, one could question Jason's [10] choice of musical pastime, but one couldn't question his work ethic.

I got Dierdre (after I finally found her in her section, where evidently the acoustics didn't allow her to hear my plaintive calls for her over the intercom) to do the buy, I called back the customer. After only about five calls he sauntered up the the buy counter, and I made him the offer.

"Marcus [11], we can give you six dollars."

"For ALL THAT?!", he asked incredulously, gesturing at his stuff on the counter with a sweep of his hand.

I interrupted Jason's rendition of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" in order to ask him to reevaluate the buy for me. He did so, and offered Marcus five dollars.

Marcus wasn't amused.

"But look at all of that! It's great stuff!"

"Well", Jason explained, "first of all the law book is from the 1940s, and we really have plenty of 1980s National Geographic, and most of ours don't have cat vomit on them, either. Finally, the used nine-volt batteries and the half-opened package of cocktail napkins, while nice and all, really won't sell well at this store."

Jason smiled broadly at Marcus, convinced, in his boyish innocence, that Marcus would understand.

Marcus didn't understand. Marcus pointed a stubby little finger at Jason, me, and even the diminutive Guamite who'd finally returned.

"You guys are all rip-off artists! Screw this!" he added, and then put all his stuff back in the trash bag and started for the exit. Halfway there he stopped and turned around to face us again. Rickie the Guamite hid under the pricing table.

"Do you guys buy DVDs?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah, but it depends on condition, supply, and demand" I said.

"Cool".

And then he was gone.

Rickie got up from under the pricing table, Dierdre went back to hide in her section, and Jason[12] regaled anyone who would listen with the first twelve verses of Dylan's "Shelter From The Storm".

I drank my now tepid coffee.

footnotes:

[1] That area of the store where we make offers for stuff that the general public brings to us. Sometimes from their own homes, not always from dumpsters or abandoned VFW centers.
[2] either a buyer or seller; in this case, a seller. Sellers sometimes complain that a given book costs too much, buyers often complain we don't pay enough for their books.
[3] a fancy word for "junk"
[4] Young but over 18
[5] See [3] above
[6] "we'd" = me
[7] Not his real name, to protect the innocent as well as the guilty
[8] The "Jupiter Symphony", opus 34
[9] A US Territory somewhere in the Pacific. They don't have to pay income taxes.
[10] Again, not his real name
[11] That is his real name, however.
[12] How many times do I have to say it? It's not his real name.
[13] There was no [13]. Pay attention