the cats in all of the bodegas in the area frighten me, but i figure there can't really be any cat hair in my sealed corrugated cardboard (biodegradable i'm sure) carton of lactaid. i should note that i just finished reading "freakonomics". i say this only because i really think they should do a study on "why do bodega owners always have cats in their stores?" cats can be smelly, shed, and really don't guard the place from any robbers. i can't imagine they keep better company with these guys than all of their buddies that are constantly visiting them throughout the day. i'm not sure if it's advantageous economically, but i do wonder about any causality or correlations it may have in sales. but i digress...
this grocery store i hit up tonight had ample supply for me to stock up for the bbq i'm having this weekend. i had brought my NYer cart - an item of shame for me but shockingly handy when shopping in the neighborhood for bulky items. so i charged through the store, filling up an entire cart full of foodstuffs. when i got to the checkout there were 2 lanes open: no's 1 & 5.
numero cinco had a line of 4 people while lane 1 had none. completely empty. had been since i entered the store - probably around 10 minutes. without looking up, i entered lane 1, ready to empty my cart on cue. in a former life i was a grocery bagger. i held the job through my junior year of high school, and not to brag, but my skills in packing groceries are unrivaled by most of my skills outside of the office beyond facebooking and recreationally drinking.
immediately the bagger stares at my cart and mumbles, "mifteenitemserless". sadly i've lived here long enough to translate that to its true meaning "15 items or less".
fine. i get it. i had too many items. that's not what killed me about the situation. it was the five employees all standing near checkout staring at all the people in line as they waited. and how the express worker didn't offer to take any of the other 4 people waiting in line (who all had 17 items at max) to her line. and that out of the 15 lines of possible checkouts, only 2 (really 1) were open. if you have the gargantuan grocery store and ample customers, flaunt your services a little. show a little pride.
while i'm on it, i should also note an important feature of the parking lot. to dissuade anyone from stealing any carts, all entrances/exits to the store are surrounded by a fence only large enough for a person to fit through. this means that anyone who has parked a car in the parking lot must leave the cart in this little holding pen and carry the bags to the car instead of rolling it to its spot. for me this evening, i had to position my cart in such a way where it tilted under the bars. i then had to put my hands through the fence to grab it on the other side without it tipping over. i achieved this feat with no droppage of my cargo, but it was a close call. my wavy lays were almost lost to the sidewalk of prospect ave. and immediately i was thrown from my grocery fantasy back into the world of bodega cats. the moment of serenity was fleeting, but as long as i'm not paying for gas i can't really complain. if i'm honest about it, this will probably be my only trip to the grocery store in the next 2 months. i can fool most of the world into my "maturity" through big words and early bedtimes, but my messenger bags and cereal for dinner will always get me in the end.
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