Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Leafs


It's Saturday night, about 20 minutes before closing time, and we're standing in the check-out line at the grocery store. The clerk makes it clear that our presence is the ONLY thing preventing her from clocking out, and she's deeply resentful as a result.

She starts to scan the final item of the man in line in front of us- a bunch of leeks. "What's this?" she demands. He just shrugs. He had no idea what he was buying.

Exasperated,she complains "This happened earlier too, and just little ol' me, no one here to help." Seeing the potential for major Charm City-style inconvenience and naively hoping to avert it, I helpfully offer "I think they're called 'leeks'".

"Leafs?" (sic) she snaps, and starts flipping through a price list. "I don't see no leafs. What section would they be under?".
"You could check under 'onions'. Also, I think it's spelled L-E-E-K-S."
She continues flipping through the booklet. "A million damn onions here, and no leafs."

I give up. It's clear trying to help will get me nowhere.. The clerk moves on to a picture book of common fruits. This goes on for awhile as she gets increasingly frustrated. Something finally catches her eye.

"Green leaf lettuce. That's the only leafs I see so that's what I'm ringing it up as." The buyer, who hasn't said a word this whole time, shrugs again and the transaction is complete.

Everytime I go to grocery store in Baltiless, a little part of me dies.

2 comments:

Victoria P said...

omg!! amanda, your house is so pretty!!

nyshelpdesk said...

dude, i'm crying overhere, that's a funny story, shi* i thought the south bronx up here in the NYC was bad...hahahaha