This morning, as it is custom after purchasing my coffee, I made my way to the Shoppers Drugmart and bought a 1 Litre bottle of water. The Life brand is only $0.89. Bargain. And much healthier than pop.

So I waltz in, grab the bottle from the shelf (I like mine at room temperature) and zig-zag my way to the cashier’s line-up, there’s only one person in front of me, bonus. Then out of nowhere, this mid-thirties mom with a pram full of Shoppers Drugmart stuff and a sicky-coughy toddler in tow zooms to the cashier, the line-up was not good enough for her apparently. At least, I think she zoomed there as I had not noticed her before, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was waiting on the side all along, she seemed determined to go in front of me… So she starts putting her items on the counter one by one, using just one hand the other tucked in her coat pocket. She’s buying an awful lot of crap this morning, a lot of it over-the-counter whitch medication for the toddler’s cough, but also some christmas candy thingies. After everything is finally loaded on the counter, the cashier, who’s IQ I’m guessing is less than the cost of my water bottle, starts scanning items gently (by this I mean so fucking slowly) and when she finishes, she announces the total amount owed and proceed, to my utmost dismay, to ask if the customer has an Optimum Card (the Shoppers Drugmart reward programme card). Of-fucking-course she does. And she plunges into her purse and fishes out a wallet the size of Montreal and proceeds to look for the damn card… all the while with a 3 yr old asking for his candies and by asking I mean, he’s whining and I can see tears forming in his sick eyes. She’s still looking for the card, he’s still whining for his candies… no, wait a minute, he’s now crying…

I just look at the cashier and gently slam my dollar on the counter and start walking away. The cashier yells that she has to scan the item, I can’t just leave… So I return to my place in the line, there are now quite few people behind me, I pick up my dollar, I hand over my bottle of water and retardo-cashier just stands there. With just one look, the cashier now understands that I will rip her to shreds and feed her inside to a mean hungry pack of dogs while marking my face in paint war design with her blood. I think she might actually do something good. The mom says: “go ahead, serve him, I’m gonna be a little while”. I turn to her and say: “yeah, I noticed”. The cashier takes my bottle, walks to the next cash register, two steps away, scans my item and says: $0.89. I give her the dollar back and walk away without waiting for the change back, who cares at this point. As I walk away, the mom says out loud: “Wow, it’s going to be a merry christmas at that house”. I just stop, turn to her and reply: “At the rate you’re going, you’ll be celebrating christmas on December 28. My christmas will be a very good one but you’ll still have to deal with this (pointing to the crying child who is sugar crashing now, tears and snot running down his face).

I exit and walk away.

AAAAAAAAAAAnd end scene.

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