Shop, Eat, Age, Die

     I went to my mother's house this morning; she was looking for chili powder to make some burrito mixture.  She couldn't find it, so I looked for a while, located it in the back of an upper cabinet.  The bottle looked old.  I looked for the expiration date: November 2011.  Many of my mother's spices are, since she doesn't cook much anymore, outdated, although she uses them anyway, figuring they're still good, or at least adequate.  I told her I'd go to the grocery store and get her some chili powder.
     In the checkout lane, two young men, or old boys, were discussing the many different recordings of "Jingle Bells," and the lack of a need for more.  I used to work in a grocery store, so I know what it's like to hear Christmas music in the background of a tedious work environment, the songs recycling for a solid month.  I guess it's part of a strategy to get people in the Christmas spirit, which in America means making people act as consumers, buyers, economy stimulators, zombies of capitalism.
     Psychological manipulation operates in grocery stores.  Displays at the "feet" or ends of aisles consist usually of junk food like Doritos or Cheetos, or 12-packs of Pepsi cans.  Normal foot traffic in the store leads customers past these aisle-ends so that Pepsi, Doritos, or other chemical substances masquerading as nourishment, are frequently seen in passing and peripheral view, leading to impulse buys.
     The checkout lane boys were right: "Jingle Bells" doesn't need to be covered anymore, even by a cute woman like Taylor Swift, who did put out an EP of Christmas-related music in 2007, because Swift and those managing her career probably figured, "People will buy shitloads of copies of a Taylor Swift Christmas album."  Such an album, an easy sell, is the musical equivalent of the Pepsi and Fritos at the end of a grocery store aisle; in other words, not Harvest by Neil Young, or Abbey Road.  Put a pretty face on an album called Sentimentalism for Slobs, and it might sell a fair portion of the copies sold of Swift's Christmas album.
     This uncalled for criticism of Taylor Swift on my part leads into something I've been wondering about myself: my tendency to occasionally be grumpy with people who work in the service industry.  Here I am now, picking on Taylor Swift's Christmas EP from 2007, a disc I've never even heard.  She has a version of "White Christmas," and something pessimistic in me says that it can't possibly be as memorable or as well sung as Bing Crosby's original version.  I tell myself that I know this is true, even while I recognize it's just a grumpy opinion based on a bias centered in the idea that quality often devolves from the original source--the reason a remake of Citizen Kane would likely be a terrible piece of shit.
     The two grocery store workers, like these thoughts about the Taylor Swift Christmas album, inspired my curmudgeonly tendency today.  I put the chili powder, a six pack of beer, and a container of sour cream on the black rolling tongue that brings products close to the cashier.  I showed my driver's license, because it's general policy in stores that when a customer buys alcohol, he or she must prove validity of age; must be at least twenty-one years old.  I'm fifty-two.  The last time I looked like I might be twenty was when I was twenty-six or so.  I made small talk with the young cashier, who opened our transaction by not calling me "Sir," but by calling me "Buddy."  By customer service workers of this cashier's generation I sometimes also get called "Dude," or "Man."  "Sir," as a form of common address, is, I guess, not regarded by youth as something to take seriously anymore.
     I said, as he rang me up, "Wouldn't it be weird if I were under twenty-one and I looked like this?"
     He said, "I carded a woman yesterday and she was a hundred and two!  I've never seen anybody that old before."
     I realized he hadn't asked to see my savings card, a little plastic rectangle attached to the other set of car keys I didn't have with me.  He'd already finished the transaction and said he couldn't do anything about it.  The boy who'd loaded the bag asked me if any of the items I'd bought were on sale.  I was pretty sure the chili powder fit that condition.  The bag boy, who was more on the ball than his coworker, knew how to check for the discount and found that I had a dollar and twelve cents coming to me.
     "Do you want the refund?" the cashier asked.
     Do I want the money the store owes me?  Yes!
     "Well, yeah," I said, looking at them as they looked blankly at someone who gave a shit about a dollar and change.
     The bag boy went to the information/refund/postal counter without a word.  The cashier looked at me confusedly, and said, "I think he wants you to follow him."
     "He should've said something, then," I replied, thinking, without any evidence, but I couldn't help remembering it, the line uttered by Samuel L. Jackson in Tarantino's Jackie Brown: "I get high after work."
     I followed the bag boy and he quickly gave me a dollar-twelve out of the cash drawer, apologizing about the misunderstanding.  He, at least, had some skill with customers, seeming more experienced in the store than his coworker.  I thanked the cashier as I left.  He just looked at me, thinking, perhaps, What an asshole.
     For a little while I did feel like an asshole.  I became irritated with a cashier for calling me "Buddy," and then for not asking me for my savings card, as cashiers in that store almost always do before they're done with the transaction.  Without the card on me, I could've recited my phone number, he could've typed it in, and the savings would've kicked in automatically.
     A dollar-twelve.  I could almost buy a candy bar with that, but that wasn't the problem, really.  The lack of competence on the cashier's part, mixed with his blasé demeanor, pissed me off.  That store, in the past few months, underwent a major overhaul, bought by a different corporation.  With the overhaul came new procedures, rearrangements of products, a slicker looking interior, and training of the staff to ideally make them uniformly helpful, friendly, and generally good at their jobs.  Such a program of change can sometimes amount to a mere cosmetic alteration, with some employees not able to cheerfully conform to the philosophies of the "the new boss."
     I sympathize with grocery store workers, with library workers, with restaurant and hotel workers; I've worked in those businesses.  It's unsettling how much bullshit these workers take from employers and distant corporate bosses; how little regarded they are as human beings, their intelligences not respected, many employees supervised by idiots who make more money than they do.
     I got some enjoyment out of the experience, at least, by handing over to my mother her sour cream and a fresh little bottle of chili powder at a dollar and twelve cents below normal price.

                                                                              Vic Neptune