The Beginning.

Greetings and Salutations!
I am a 23 year old, very antisocial woman currently employed at my local superstore. I began as a cashier, but am now working at the Customer Service desk. Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why would someone who's antisocial be working as a cashier and/or customer service representative?" That is a very fine question of which I have two answers for:
Reason #1. Both are on the higher-paid end of the entry-level positions that aren't overnight.
Reason #2. I sometimes have too much patience for my own good.

Now, on to the whole reason for this blog!
(Queue dramatic, royal-sounding trumpet fanfare.)

After a long day of work, dealing with all the lovely patrons who choose to grace me with their presence, I tend to build up quite a bit of tension and/or hatred towards some of the situations I end up having to endure. So, for the past few weeks, I've gotten in the habit of typing up some of these stories and texting them to friends. These wonderful little tales have gotten such good feedback that I've been saving them in my phone and have decided to dedicate this whole blog to them. I've never fiddled with a blog before, so you'll have to bear with me if things start off a bit slow. I'm going to start with the oldest rants and, over time, work my way up to the current date.

So, without further ado: My first stories, gripes, grumbles and tid-bits from working as a cashier:

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~ One of the first amusing and ironic situations that lead me to keeping track of all this nonsense is when I was cashing out this old grandma and her two grandchildren. The entire time I was ringing up this woman's items, her phone was ringing constantly with different, obnoxious ringtones. She seemed very savvy with the phone (which doesn't seem very common for the elderly) and I don't think I heard the same ringtone twice. As she was paying for the items, the phone rang once more, at which point the little grandson, who couldn't have been more than four, looked up at her and said, "That's why I don't like your phone, Grandma. Its noisy and you're on it all the time." All I could think was, "Srsly? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

~ Also, I must have missed this class somewhere, but how in the world do some women fit so much stuff in those grocery baskets? I'm pretty freaking good at packing stuff, but I've had some who've walked up with one basket so packed and stacked full that, after I've bagged it all, I would have to distribute it back between two carts and end up filling both to the brim.
It always gives me this cartoon image in my head of some lady with a basket piled 8ft high where she calmly looks at the dumbfounded cashier and says, "Oh don't worry, hun, it'll all fit back in there. I don't wanna have to push two baskets out."

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And last, but not least for the evening-
~ What in the world is with old people jabbing the ever-loving crap out of the card readers' screens with the stylus? Yes, I know the screen isn't always calibrated perfectly, so when you write your name, it won't look beautiful. I can understand that. But if you don't have to press that hard to write your name, why do you have to jab the "Yes" or "OK" button as if you're trying to ram a stake through Dracula's heart to confirm your signature or amount of cash back?
Every time someone mentions that our debit/credit card readers suck, it takes every ounce of restraint in me not to say, "Because elderly people like to use them as dart boards."