Weirdos and Walmart Checkers Conspire to Make Our Val Bummed

So...last Sunday, after I was done bashing the heavily-sighing, "gotta dig for it" postal clerk at the dead-mouse-smelling post office for giving attitude when I dared to take my orange postcard to pick up a package...I alluded to having a problem at Walmart the same day.

Oh. I had problems all right.

I wanted to get something Christmasy and colorful for dessert after Christmas dinner. Something I didn't have to make. Something I only had to put in my cart and pay for. Easy peasy. I chose some mini cupcakes with festive red and green frosting. Not only did I choose those festive mini cupcakes...I spent about five minutes picking up packages and turning them around and making sure I got the very best festive cupcakes available. The ones with unskewed icing. Pleasing to the eye. Pretty AND tasty.

You know how it goes at Walmart. The checker scans your stuff and puts it in bags on that turntable lazy Susan bag holder thingy. And you take the bags off the hooks as she spins it around, and place them in your cart. The checker handed me the rolls as she bagged them. So I could put them in the child-seat part of the cart and not smash them. Sometimes they hand you that fragile stuff, sometimes they set it up on top of that turntable lazy Susan bag holder thingy so you notice it and take care of it.

Checker announced my total. As I was wrestling with that dang chip-reader that flops down when you touch it, Checker took my last bag, the one containing my festive mini cupcakes, and walked around the turntable lazy Susan bag holder thingy to put them in my cart. Which she did by slinging the bag in sideways like it held clothing or towels.

SHE RUINED MY FESTIVE MINI CUPCAKES!

Okay. So she really only ruined four of them. Smashed a red and a green, messing up the frosting, and turning over two greens so that their frosting became skewed. I was in no mood to call her out, because I was IN A MOOD! A mood that started when I had to wait in line for quite a while, with a weirdo behind me.

This weirdo didn't know me. I didn't know him. He became overly familiar by walking past my cart (tight squeeze) to get to the man ahead of me, who must have worked with him once upon a time. After they exchanged pleasantries, Weirdo got back in line behind me, leaving the worker guy to pay for his stuff. I was putting things out of the lower section of my cart. Putting the cold things together, saving the fragile things for last. Here's where Weirdo gets weirder.

"Want me to put something out for you?"

"No."

"You're good?"

"Yes."

I find his over-familiarity a bit off-putting. If not downright creepy. Who does that? Offers to take things out of a stranger's cart? I didn't want him touching my goodies!

As always, I tried not to engage. You can't show kindness to a weirdo, or you're stuck with him. This was a bald Uncle-Fester-looking guy. He kept trying to make small talk, which I ignored. I'd acknowledged him. Now it was time for him to shut the eff up. I had the things out of the bottom, and got back behind my cart to push it forward, putting the fragile things (like my festive mini cupcakes) on the conveyor. I had put the divider out as soon as all my stuff was on.

Uncle Weirdo Fester kept crowding closer. You know how it is. You can hardly reach back to the chip-reader floppy thing to pay, because a weirdo is all up in your space. I almost threw an elbow to back him off, but at the last minute he took a step back, and made an obvious show of looking anywhere but the floppy keypad where I was typing in my PIN. I got my receipt and took off.

When I got home and unpacked my bags, I found an item I didn't buy. Oh, I PAID for it, all right. But I didn't buy it.

WHO buys that? At Christmas? It costs $2.27 a roll, by cracky! I already had plenty of tape. It's even Scotch tape. But it comes in a three-pack and is more economical than ONE roll of Magic Tape in the hard dispenser. At first I thought, "Bonus! Free tape!" But then I looked at my receipt, and saw that I'd been charged for it.

The only consolation is thinking about Uncle Weirdo Fester getting home, ready to wrap his package (heh, heh, I said package), and not having any tape.

That inadvertent revenge only cost me $2.27. Plus tax.