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onaipwolf

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It was December 15^th and Walmart was in absolute chaos. Nine days until Christmas and everyone decided that Friday afternoon was apparently the only time that they could go shopping for that perfect--and cheap--present for dear old Aunt Susie, before Christmas. Seven hours into my nine hour shift I had the great honor of manning register 23: the cigarette lane. My first time since my 21^st birthday was just a few days before. Like most “first times” it was awkward and lasted way longer than I wanted it to, even though it really wasn’t that long.

My acquaintance with cigarettes is limited to a single encounter in which I coughed of a full five minutes after a few puffs. Ironically, it wasn’t because my lungs burned like normal people would. On the contrary, I didn’t feel any burning at all. I instead had the wonderfully frightening experience of not being able to breathe coupled with a gloriously dizzy sensation that forced me to lean against my supposed-friend in order to avoid looking like the complete novice that I was, and sit down on the ground. If I had ever been “cool” enough to have been high before I probably would have compared the dizzy, disconnected feeling to something similar. But seeing as my career into the wild, exciting life as a cigarette-smoking junkie was to come to such an abrupt halt, I could only say it felt like someone had stolen the logical side of my brain and replaced it with some hot air. My new “friends” found me amusing for awhile, but my inability to participate in this particular gateway drug precluded me form forming any lasting bonds with any in that particular aspect of high school.

I only share this exciting excerpt from my high school career to explain my complete ignorance when it comes to cigarette brands. In most circles, knowing the difference between full flavor and menthol wouldn’t really come up, but, oh joy of joys, I was at work. And if I’ve learned anything about working for the Stealer of Souls, a.k.a Walmart for four years is that “normal” isn’t what describes many of the patrons that grace the doors of the Always Low Prices! Portal to the underworld.

The particular customer that I was desperately trying not to scream at had decided to demand that I provide for him his particular obscure brand of cigarettes, and I do it right now. My eyes raked over the wall of cigarettes behind me in search of the elusive name brand. The impatience of the man who reeked of old smoke and b.o. grated at my infernal need to please people. Even those with chain-smoking rudeness landed in my “I need to make you happy” radar. Added to the line of seven people behind him, probably all just as grumpy left me with the quietly growing urge to tear the packs of death off the wall and start hurling them at Mr. Chain-smoker until he left my lane.

Of course I never actually act on my fantasies. Well, rarely. There was this one time my teacher called me insolent and I—oh wait that was just in my head as well. Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me.

But back to me committing imaginary acts of violence against strangers. I had spent the last 5 minutes looking for the man’s stupid cigarettes with no luck. “What does it look like?” I asked for the second time. I tensed knowing my question would aggravate him even more.

“Red and yellow. I already told you that.”

‘Great. Now he thinks I’m stupid.’ I thought. I struggled to keep my tone even as I replied, “I know that sir. I don’t think we sell those.”

He began to curse at me, his face slowly turning into a radish. All he needed was a green plant coming off the top of his head. “I come here all the time to buy my cigs and I know you have them.”

“Do you know what shelf they’re on?” I asked, figuring he’d know since he got them so often. Apparently he didn’t though, for this only seemed to encourage him to enter into another string of epithets. “I want to talk to your manager right now about your rudeness.”

“Ok sir.” I said, my voice far more cheery that I actually felt. “Amanda.” I called to one of the customer service managers or CSM’s who was organizing the schedule for the rest of the day. That was pretty much the only advantage to the cigarette lane: close managers.

“Yes? What’s going on?” Asked Amanda as she walked up to my register. She looked as tense as I felt.

“This gentleman wants to talk to you.” I said, gesturing to the man across from me.

He began his volley of complaints against my general capableness, and questioned my intellectual ability to read labels. I forced myself to tune out after that, not wanting to have enough incentive to actually shove his carton of beloved cigarettes down his throat and watch him choke.

Finally the tirade ended, Amanda grabbed his cigarettes (which were by the smokeless tobacco—because that makes sense of course) and I finished ringing him up. That was an extra special treat, since he watched everything I did like I was going to screw up scanning one item. As he snatched up his cigarettes from my hand, and stormed off, Amanda asked me to sign out of the register.

“Why?” I asked, feeling a little angry at her apparent evaluation of my skills.

“Just sign off. Jonathon will take over for you for now.” Amanda called CSM Jonathon over and I got to walk over to the customer service counter with her.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find his cigarettes but they weren’t in the right spot.” I said, defending my actions.

“I know,” she countered, “but it looked like you were about to cry. I know you just got back from your break, so why don’t you go grab a cart and pick up hodge for awhile. When you get done I’ll find a new register for you, ok.”

“Ok.” I said, not because I agreed with her, but because I wasn’t bold enough to stand my ground. I grabbed an extra cart from customer Service and walked down to the beginning of the registers. “Picking up hodge” is basically where you go through all of the end registers and pick up the merchandise that people decided they didn’t want. I usually liked doing it because it gave me a chance to do something different, but now it felt like a punishment.

“Do you have any hodge?” I asked Karen at register 10. Sometimes customers give the cashiers the unwanted items, so we have to ask at the open registers if they have any.

“Nope.”

“Ok.” I turned away, ready to push my cart onto 11, but I heard a voice off to my right.

“Hello? I can’t find my mom.” It was a little girl dressed in an old purple coat and blue jeans. She had messy brown hair and looked about 7 or 8.

“Come on, let’s go to Customer Service, and we can page your mom there.”

“Ok,” she replied in a slightly shaky voice.

“What’s your mom’s name?” I asked on the short trip there.

“Susan.”

“Ok and what’s yours?”

“Kirsten.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

Kirsten shut down after that, even refusing my offer to hold her hand.

I walked up to customer service and told Jeff about the situation, and he took over after that. I went back to pi8cking up hodge, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl. Kirsten. We had little kids lost in the store all the time, but this was the first time I had actually seen one.

After I finished with the hodge, I dropped it off at Customer Service and noticed the girl was still there. I glanced at the clock. It had been 40 minutes. She sat silently on the bench. The calm resolute look in her eye surprised me. Amanda put me on another register and for the next hour I dealt with the stresses of the busy holiday season.

Finally it was time to leave the house of horrors, but I wanted to check up on Kirsten first. She had vacated her spot on the bench, so I figured her mom must have finally come for her.

“Looking for something?” Jeff asked from behind the counter.

“No, I was just seeing if the little girl I brought was still here I guess her mom got her, so that’s good.”

“Actually, we had to call social services. Her mom never showed up. I guess she’s done this before.”

“That’s horrible.” Who would do that to a little kid?

“Yeah, but she seemed fine.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” I replied distractedly.

“No problem.”

I began to walk back to the time clock, not really paying attention to my surroundings. Considering her unfortunate situation, my “bad” day didn’t seem all that bad anymore. I would like to say that experience totally changed me, and I became a more caring and tolerant person, but that would just be a convenient lie.

What it did make me realize was that the reason I was so troubled by everything is that despite all that her mother had apparently done still wasn’t enough to make Kirsten angry about it. She just accepted her mother’s rejection like it was normal. I had wanted Kirsten to cry or be angry or yell because that’s what I would have done, but I began to wonder if maybe she was right. Despite her young age, she had already learned that there are some things that are just impossible to control. It made me hope that maybe someday I could learn to accept it when customers get irate as something that happens. Of course, until then there’s always the option of maiming others in my imagination.