14 Minutes at the Corner of Happy and Healthy

It's just a suggestion but I'm thinking that retail stores might want to take a step backward to a time when cashiers could actually read, count, and speak clearly. Being able to reason would mean extra points.

All I wanted was a pack of cigarettes but the drugstore's check verification machine was acting up. The clueless young cashier had clearly not been trained for this eventuality and after several minutes of fumbling and vacant looks, it finally occurred to him to summon a supervisor. Well,

in a matter of speaking. He first had to shift his gum to his cheek and then wave one arm and hand in the general direction of the back of the store. Apparently no one had thought to train him on using the intercom either.

The supervisor, scowling at being interrupted - from her mid afternoon nap, from the looks of her, I thought - shoved him aside and began demonstrating the fine art of data input.

Pay attention! she snapped at him when his attention wandered to the pair of scantily clad, little girls coming arm and arm though the door in a fit of giggles. Truth to tell, they were whorishly dressed and he leered more than looked.

The supervisor pinched his elbow, pointed to the check and then to the monitor.

Enter the routing number, she said impatiently, then the account number and the check number.

He mumbled something unintelligble and gave her a blank look. There was a snicker of laughter from the ever growing line of customers and she gave him a rough shove and took over the computer herself. It didn't work.

Do you have another means of payment? she asked glaring at the computer screen.

I did but charity deserted me at that precise moment. I pointedly looked at my watch before I said no.

She transferred the angry glare to me and yelled for a manager. Literally yelled over the heads of the customers. Perhaps, I mused, the intercom was malfunctioning as well as the check verification machine. The line now stretched nearly to the pharmacy and the snicker of laughter had turned to a disgusted curse.

The manager arrived, immediately used the intercom to call for a second cashier, then furiously voided my sale, ripped off the aborted receipt tape, and indifferently beckoned me to a second cash register where she re-rang the sale and ran my check through without the slightest difficulty. She wouldn't meet my eyes, didn't trouble herself to tell me thank you and knowing it would be a cold day in hell before any of these empty headed cretins thought to apologize, I took my cigarettes and left.