Checkout Chat

You never know what might happen at the grocery store. Actually, that's not true. You almost always know what will happen when you go to the grocery store. Or at least I do. I know that when I go to Trader Joe's I will be disappointed by the food sample, they will be out of something that I want to buy, and that I will forget why I went there in the first place.

Well, today was different. For one, they were sampling instant chocolate pudding. It was excellent. Also, I was shopping with a list this time, and I'm pretty sure I that I found everything on it. Crazy, I know. All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty good outing.

But even more unexpected than the delicious pudding or my fine organizational skills was the conversation I ended up in while I was at the checkout. I'm usually prepared for the normal amount of checkout line chit-chat. "How are you?" "Did you find everything okay?" These are questions I am prepared for. But every so often, someone throws me a curveball.

I'm going to get a little personal here. I was buying alfalfa sprouts. I don't normally buy alfalfa sprouts, but I was planning on making a sandwich for lunch. And the overly friendly cashier guy was not going to let this slide.

"So what do you do with these?!" he asked.
"Oh, um. I like to put them on sandwiches actually. Kind of like lettuce."
"Oh wow, that's awesome! Yeah, that makes sense. I could see that. I bet they're less messy."

I agreed, but was actually wondering what kind of problems this man has that he considers lettuce to be a messy food. Making a sandwich must be quite a terrible ordeal for him. I don't even want to think about what a salad must be like.

"So they must be really good for you, huh?"

I was beginning to suspect that I was on some sort of hidden camera show. I was glad I put a bra on today.

"Yeah, I guess so. They're probably not bad for you," I told him.

At this point, another employee decided to join in. A girl came over to bag my fascinating groceries, and picked up the container of sprouts and began inspecting the nutritional information. I was starting to get a little nervous.

And then he picked up the bag of carrots.

"Oh man, these are the old-fashioned kind of carrots! You know, I call them Bugs Bunny carrots," he said.

"Oh....yes."

I myself just call them 'carrots' but that's fine. To each his own.

"Yeah, you gotta wash these, peel 'em and everything," he commented.

The bagging girl pointed out that these carrots are a very popular item. They sell a lot of carrots, apparently. I felt good about this. They must be some fine carrots.

They talked a bit more about carrots as he continued to ring up my groceries. You know, baby versus regular, that kind of stuff. To my knowledge, there was no hidden camera. Not one. This guy was just really interested in my sprouts and carrots. I thought they were kind of boring, but I don't know, maybe I'm just jaded.

I just hope he didn't buy any sprouts before he went home. Now that I've had some time to think about it, I don't know that he's ready to move on from lettuce just yet. Sprouts can be a little tricky.