“I ain’t got that,” the woman says, loud enough for me to hear her from where I’m
standing. She’s likely my age, looks like she’s lived hard and there’s no mirth about her body
language or her words. The cashier at the store has been around for a while and has heard it all
before.
“Do you want to put some of the items back?” the cashier asks mildly.
“I got what I got and I ain’t got that much money,” the woman is speaking louder now.
She looks at me. I look back.
“Ma’am, would you like us to restock this?” the cashier says sweetly.
“I need this. I ain’t leaving. You got to give it to me,” she demands, and now she’s trying
to get the bagged groceries back in her cart.
“Ma’am, if you cannot pay we’ll have to take something off or restock,” the cashier is
like oil on ice. She’s cool and slick.
“Gimme ten dollars,” the woman advances on me with her palm out. Behind her, the
cashier is taking a few items out and taking them off the total.
“Tell me something interesting,” I reply, vamping for the cashier, who grins at me.
“What?” the woman snarls. “I ain’t got to tell you nothing.” She’s getting animated now,
talking louder and looking around for help. There’s a reason I shop early, and that reason is to
avoid people. It’s failed this time, certainly.
And this makes me wonder. The woman isn’t going to get much help with her con at this
time of the morning. Paralyzing the only open line is a great idea if you want someone to buy Your stuff for you or give you money, but this early there’s no pressure to get her out of the store in a hurry.
She either isn’t smart or she’s nuts. Maybe both. “You ain’t got no ten dollars?” she demands of me. “Didn’t say I did or didn’t. But tell me something interesting first,” I reply and I’ve gotten some incredible stories. A woman yelled at me to let her and her husband into traffic and I yelled back, “Tell me something interesting.” “What?”“Where did you meet your husband?” I asked. She was with a guy, I just made a stab they were married. “At a car wreck. We both stopped to help.” The woman is hanging out of the window but the light changes. I wave them on and wave goodbye. See! I tell you, ask for interesting stories. The woman in the store wheels around and realizes the cashier has not only taken items out but put the taken items in a bag for the guy who stocks shelves to put them back. He arrives and leaves while the woman rants about starvation. She pays up then pushes her cart towards the door fussing and cussing, but doing no harm and no good. “She’s always like that,” the cashier tells me before I can ask. “She’s always ten bucks short, never eleven and never nine. She’s not allowed to come in during rush hour.
“Aha!” I say and the cashier laughs.
“She also tries to return open items that she’s eaten half of, and she claims parts were
missing,”
“Really?”
“And get this, she’s owns a million dollar house on five hundred acres of land.”
And suddenly, I have my interesting story. And now, you do, too.
Take Care,
Mike