I just had the strangest cashier ever. I put two bottles of wine up on the counter at the liquor store and he said “Can I help you?”
It took a couple seconds to figure out how to respond- “I want to buy these.”
He stared right at the money in my hand and asked, “Do you want to pay with cash or a credit card?”
I held up my hand slightly and said “Cash.”
He kept looking at it and asked me “How much?”
Again, how do I answer? I’m trying to not be rude but everything he's saying is completely backwards. Obviously it’s his first day on the job, but how does he not know this routine? Certainly he’s bought things in a store before, probably thousands of times. The customer puts things on the counter, the cashier rings them up and tells the customer how much is owed. How has it been this much trouble up to this point? I asked him, “What do I owe?”
He looked, “$14.71.”
I handed him $15 and wondered what else was going to happen.
He rang it up and said rather confidently, “You’re change is twenty-nine cents.” He had said it too early though, he still needed to put all the money away and get the change. A minute later he handed me a quarter and four pennies. Except he didn’t really hand it to me. I wouldn’t say that he “tossed” it either, but whatever he did resulted in two of the pennies falling to the floor.
I picked them up and he handed me the bag. As I grabbed it he asked me if I wanted it double-bagged. I said no, realizing later that this was a huge mistake. My wine bottles made it back home intact, but I should have taken him up on his offer just to see what else would have happened. Would have he put them in a trash bag? Would have he then have asked if I wanted it triple-bagged? Paper-bagged? Tea-bagged? No way, but something very weird would have happened and I wish I knew what it was.
I know one thing though- he’s my new liquor store cashier.
