Must've Done Something Good: Amazon Page

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Brushing up on my math skills, I’d done some rudimentary calculations that had turned out pretty depressing. I’d determined that—provided I did end up staying at St. Matt’s until June—I was well on track to having spent (and hopefully not wasted) over three percent of my life to date there.

I was so backed up with lesson planning, I hadn’t even had a chance to read the short stories I’d assigned for the next class. I felt completely bogged down. And here I was at the grocery store buying emergency food for the weekend fundraising activities because I was afraid the students would forget to bring anything. What made it even sadder was that I was sure they didn’t even appreciate what I was doing to help them.

I wheeled my cart to the closest open lane and began stacking the soda (diet—I’d read something about lots of old people having diabetes) and trans-fat-laden bakery stuff (they made it this far—a few cupcakes won’t kill them) on the conveyor belt. When I finished, I wheeled the cart through the aisle to the end, so my groceries could be bagged, getting the rubber bumpers caught on either side of the tight aisle a few times along the way.

I stood in front of the register then, waiting for some form of acknowledgement from the cashier. I hadn’t even received a token hello yet. On the screen next to me $24.72 appeared. Yet, still no communication from the cashier. Seriously, the computerized voices in the self-scan lanes were more polite and friendlier, to boot. I resolved to do nothing until I was acknowledged.

This was fast-becoming a stand-off. I refused to say or do anything until I was spoken to and the girl at the register refused to speak to me. She glanced at the screen and raised her eyebrows, mutely demanding that I hand over the amount displayed. Seige of Lane Six Continues, I thought.

“Hi,” I finally said. “How are you doing today, Kara?” I’d gotten the name from her badge. She was probably about eighteen. Way too much black eyeliner for anyone’s good.

“Fine,” she said.

“That’s wonderful,” I replied. “I’m doing well also. Thank you for your concern.”

I waited.

“Am I all set to go home with these groceries now?” I asked.

“You need to pay,” Kara corrected my ridiculous delusion.

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” I said. “How on earth was I supposed to know that? No one told me,” I added with truly excessive emphasis.

“Twenty-four seventy-two,” she said.

“Oh, is that the amount I need to pay?” I asked.

She didn’t reply.

I handed her some money and was given my change without a word. Kara then started to scan the next customer’s items. I looked at my own purchases, pathetically jumbled at the end of the conveyor belt, unbagged, beside a stack of unopened brown paper bags. There wasn’t a bagger in sight.

“Stop!” I practically shouted. “My order isn’t done yet. My groceries have not been bagged and if you think I’m going to do it myself, you are sadly mistaken. The cost of bagging my groceries has been added to the price of every item in this store and if you think I am going to bag them myself you’re inexplicably insane since I’ve already paid for them to be bagged. Why can’t there be enough baggers for every lane? There are never enough baggers for every lane! I have bagged my own things in the past, but I am done. No more!”

People were staring at me, clearly entertained by my outburst. An old man in line at the next register nodded vigorously, adding “Hear, hear!”

“And also, by the way, I really don’t care if you hate your job,” I addressed Kara. “I’ve had crappy jobs like yours and I was always pleasant to people, not a mute, angry weirdo. Now, I have the worst job in the universe and all I expect is a little humanity from the people I am handing over my meager salary to and I can’t even get that. Where is the justice, I ask?”

A manager arrived beside the register. “Is everything okay over here?” she asked.

“I am just waiting for my expensive and hard-earned groceries to be bagged by someone other than me,” I replied. “I have made do without a greeting, but I can only be pushed so far.” I really must have appeared bonkers by this point.

The manager apologized for the wait and began to bag my groceries. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s nice to be treated like a human being.” I turned my head slowly and glanced at Kara, hoping she had heard me. She appeared oblivious as she scanned items through, beep by beep.

As I wheeled my cart out to my car, I truly felt as though I would burst out crying if I let myself, which I didn’t. I could not believe what I’d gotten myself into. For nine more miserable months, there’d be no escape.

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