The Hanger, The Hanger

As some might already know, or assume, I am not always the most sensible person. I've panicked and run red lights in the middle of the night, said things I shouldn't have said, eaten things I shouldn't have eaten, several drunken "strolls" where I don't know what I've done, and proactively planned dates I knew would fail (can't blame a guy for hoping though). Never before did I go grocery shopping thirty minutes before sunset during Ramadan.

It should be noted I'm giving the cashier a hard time here and we don't get to hear his side of the story. Maybe he's a newly dumped, hungry as hell, dehydrated to the moon. Same could be said for the bag boy.

To be clear this wasn't a full-on shopping trip. I just needed some fruit, cheese, and frozen pizzas. I went in expecting to see throngs of last-minute shoppers, but only saw a few shopping carts half full. I went downstairs to the main part of the grocery store and picked up the items mentioned above and went back up to the main floor and the cashier. Looking at the bulk section, I impulsively bought chocolate chips and walnuts (I've had over ripe banana in my freezer for ages). Then I went to cash out.

What a disaster. This cashier's posture was sunk in, he could barely keep his head up. The man in front of me had three cases of yoghurt and pita bread, and this cashier didn't ring up the dude's pita bread. 75% is a pretty solid shooting percentage, but you're not playing basketball, buddy. The customer and the cashier were talking back in forth in Arabic but it seemed more constructive than aggressive.Standing there, I started to feel the heat of the afternoon and the work of the day take its toll, and now I was getting tired. The customer moved on and I walked over to the other side of the cash register to start packing up my bags.

Now Jordan is not, in any respects, green. Every store uses plastic bags to bag all the groceries, there's  liminal recycling systems and some renewable energy initiatives. The first thing is the most important for this story. They also hire bag boys. So I pull out my reusable bag from my backpack and put it in front of the bag boy. The bags of fruit are scanned, I put them in the bag, then the pizzas, into the backpack, then MAXI PADS?!?!

The guy had missed the cheese, nuts and chocolate chips! I couldn't believe it. That's 5/8. He had completely bungled the transaction. It was hard to not be frustrated, so I took the easy route and yelled at him. Like a zombie, the cashier was unphased by this. Since he had started a new tab on the pads, he rung up the cheese, nuts and chocolate chips separately. He looked at both receipts and I thought to myself, you can't let this guy add then subtract. I tried to help but the numbers were printed in Arabic, and the receipt machine was running on low ink. Add my fatigue into the equation and I couldn't do it without a pen.

He handed me 21JD back which seemed fair so I walked out of there and started to reflect on how to prevent that from happening again. Here's what I came up with:

Customer Solutions:
Look for the perkiest cashier
Don't go shopping at 6 pm during Ramadan

Cashier Solutions:
Get some rest, take a break and switch back and forth with the bag boy

Everyone should win if we follow these ideas. Ramadan Kareem and do your best to avoid the worst feeling ever: hanger.