Respect Your Elders! · 8:43am Apr 3rd, 2016
Alright kids, gather around. It's story time!
There I was at work, bagging groceries like the lowly peasant I am. As I finish off another customer, she shows up. Now, I'm no stranger to the wrinkled faces of the elderly at this store, but I knew right away... she was different. Perhaps it was the glint in her eye, or perhaps it was the husband by her side, silent, but she carried an unreadable aura.
Still, I had a duty to carry out. As the cashier begins scanning her items and sliding them to me, I begin the next step in the conveyor belt. I open up a bag and start loading it full of fruits and veggies. The old lady watches me the whole time, staring like a senile hawk that thinks it can still catch a meal. Nonetheless, I continue arranging her items. The bag filled on one side, I pick up a small potato and place it on top--but gasp!--she speaks.
"Don't put a tomato in there," she croaks. I stop for a moment, caught off guard, but I regain my senses in a moment. I look at the tomato in confusion, but my expertise in bagging has already deciphered the problem. The idea of such a squishy, soft item being placed with the heavier of its kind must have upset her. In truth, my intention was to set it on top of the pile, snug, and begin filling the other half. But, as they say, the customer is always right.
With a firm yes, I remove the tomato and look over the plethora of items in front of me, needing to pick a substitute. If a soft item upset the age-rotted mind of my customer, I had to pick something different. The answer came quickly; I reached forward and grasped none other than the miniature milk carton by the handle, lifting it into the bag. Unlike before, I set it in the other side, giving the filled half a nice and sturdy wall to lean against.
I've barely reached for a new bag when her voice speaks up again, crackling enough to make a fireplace jealous. "Don't put the milk in there," she says, mirroring before, and like before, she gives me no reason as to why. Although the twist was unexpected, I was ready and alert. I feel her dry, sunken eyes bore into my head as I look down at the grocery store sin I must have committed. Comparing the tomato and the miniature milk carton, it only takes a moment of sleuthing to realize the truth--this is a game of Goldilocks. It can't be too hot or too cold.
As I remove the milk, my mind races to figure out a solution. The tomato was too soft and the milk too heavy. I know I need to think fast lest the poor, old couple be forced to wait as I catch up in bagging. One delay was bad, two simply awful. Suddenly, it dawns on me. The bananas! After giving her another solid yet polite yes, I quickly move the suspiciously-shaped fruit to the free spot the milk left. What could be more in between a tomato and milk than that? I was sure I'd found the comfortable middle ground.
I was wrong.
She only takes a second of staring down her flaky, overgrown sniffer to sense the wrong. "Don't put the bananas in there," she says. This time, she gives me a hint as to what my wrongdoing is. "If you don't add milk, you don't add bananas." The sheer force of the words in her cigarette-stained throat put me in a tizzy, but she's not finished. She adds, "You should know this."
My mind breaks right then. How could bananas be equivalent to milk? Surely the balance was intact. What could she see that I couldn't? The contradiction threatens to melt my mind more than age has melted her face. With nowhere to turn, I retreat to my failsafe--explaining what I was doing. "I was going to put it on the side, next to the fruits," I say. She had to see the logic now that she saw it from my view. Without a care, she plays her ace card.
"Are you paying for these?"
My brain fumbles and promptly shuts down. I enter a robotic state and move in automatic. After yet another yes leaves my lips, I work diligently to pack the rest of her groceries carefully so as to not upset her further. As the last of it reaches a bag, I encounter one last, unexpected challenge--her husband.
I had filled her cart with four bags by then, but there was no room for the third. I fear that trying to gently lay the last one over another would provoke her ire once again, so I turn to the only option I had left. Her husband has wandered to the cart, no doubt in preparation to leave. "Would you like to carry this one?" I ask, hoping he sees the dilemma. The answer comes swiftly. "No," he flatly states. He then returns to silence, as if he'd never spoken in the first place. He still takes the bag and shoves it into the four inch by eight inch section on the cart for drinks. I fear for the condition of the items inside, smooshed so, but I know they would be nothing compared to what my mistake of adding bananas would've been.
Finally, the order finished and packed, the lovely elderly couple begins to leave, but not without a final goodbye. The old lady turns to me, turning the sides of her dry, sun-scorched lips up into a warm smile. "You have a lot to learn," she says before departing. I decide not to mention that I'd been working there for over a year and had been called one of the best employees by the managers. Instead, I mutter, "bitch" under my breath as my cashier tells me it's okay, already starting the next order.
Funny enough, another customer came in just ten minutes later, happy to see me. She eagerly handed me her bags, saying I did such a good job of balancing the weight of her groceries last time.
The moral of the story is, obviously, to respect your elders no matter what they do. Old people are wise and knowledgable, and every action they take is a lesson for you to help better yourself. I am happy this experience happened to me, and I look forward to finding the message left for me. I'll find it... eventually...
I hope that was entertaining for you. I've been wanting to write this silly thing since it happened! 
Unfortunately, this is the second version since I lost the first one in a browser crash. I think the first version was better, but oh well.
In all seriousness, take this as an example of how not to act. All children go through a dickish stage, and sometimes they never grow out of it. They turn into farts like these... Old farts... Smelly old farts. Ew.
I've never liked the saying "respect your elders." I'm not going to give someone my utmost respect because they're old, and thus, supposedly wise. I'll treat them with the same good respect I'll give everyone else unless given a reason not to, such as these rude people provided. I think that's a fair thing to think.
So there's my story for the day. Hope you all have a good one!
Stay tuned~
These story times are always the best.
I feel like the 'respect your elders' thing is less so out of respect for their wisdom, but more because they're old.
I mean, how would you feel if you've been dealing with everybody's shit for god knows how long, and then some teenage brat starts getting all funky with you.
STEALTH EDIT: not to say that you're some teenage brat, I mean, ugh... I should really just shut my mouth for once
You should respect anyone who are able to respect you.
3845392 I think the same, and also:
Just because someone's older, does not mean they're wiser. If everyone followed that rule, humanity would be stuck, most likely in the Stone Age.
Yes, unfortunately assholery doesn't go away with age. With time it just gets distilled down into a more pure form of hatefulness.
Ah, cashiering, that was always "fun" when I worked at Meijer. On the one hand, you don't have to run around, but on the other hand it can get quite hectic (not to mention we did both bagging and cashiering there, we didn't have a separate cashier and bagger most of the time). I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me as a cashier was some lady asked if I was Jewish (not in a mean or insulting way, just in a speculative way) because she thought I looked Mediterranean, and I was like "Ummmmmmmm,,, no, I'm not."
If people regularly asked me that, I wouldn't find it so weird, but that's the first and only time that's ever happened to me. Oh, and I've got German, Polish, and Russian ancestry if anyone's curious. So yeah, definitely not Mediterranean.
nice, good story. yes, "THOSE" customers are the best aren't they? i have a few myself.