Written: 11/4/22
Word Count: 2,539

"Have a nice day."

The words were monotone, ending on a single raised note as if remembering where I was but only at the last second. Only the slightest of uplifts at the corners of my mouth could pass for customer service.

Days when I spent the entire shift on the lane could drive me crazy if I let it. If we got slammed, the assholes were sure to come and find me. More than that, though, was the motion sickness I felt after hours of bagging groceries, turning my body in the same way again and again.

The heat clinging to my skin, the constant turning of my torso and shoulders, and the mental exhaustion it took to play Tetris every time I had to fill a new bag were the true causes of instability and irritability in cashiers.

To the older ladies, cashiering was almost like an art form. Nobody expected them to perform miracles and push people out of their line like they received a bonus for beating a certain speed record. To the younger ones, nothing we ever did could satisfy the customers. Patience didn't exist for us.

I had yet to grow the kind of thick skin where the constant nagging didn't irritate me, often following me home at night.

"Did those noodles ring up at $2.00 per box?"

My eyes blinked thickly once, like a great owl, as I unearthed my crooked body from its slumped position to tune my focus onto the customer in my line. She stood on the other side of the glass, her eyes glued to the screen that showed each item's cost as it was scanned.

As if unearthing myself from a heavy fog, I tried to recall when I'd scanned the pasta. At this point of the day, I was usually on a roll. I scanned faster than most customers could keep up with.

Did I slow down for them?

Nope.

Looking at my carousel, stuffed halfway around with fully-packed plastic bags, I located the one I remembered stuffing the slim packages of organic spaghetti noodles into.

Raising my eyes to my screen took more concentration than I would have liked. Once on a roll, I could keep going without rest or water for hours. But, once the gears ground to a halt, it was hard to jump back onto the robot wagon again.

One of my eyebrows raised sharply, dipping into the stray hairs on my forehead that were too short for my tiny ponytail to hold.

She wasn't taking her bags from the carousel. Why hadn't she noticed the pasta's price when it was rung up? It's not like she's doing anything else.

"They're ringing up 4.75 each." My eyes begin assessing as I tilt my head, wondering if this woman was the type to give me trouble.

Taking in her stout, overweight figure with the old bra peeking through the loose, stretched-out tank, I mentally groaned. Middle-aged women who looked like they spent a lot of time doing work outside could go one of two ways.

The first way they remained understanding. If this woman fell into that category, then she'll either ask me to take the boxes off of the transaction without fussing, or she'll say the price difference doesn't matter.

If she wasn't one of the understanding ones...my brow flattened, the skin pulling taut with the concentration of forcing my expression into one that was as still as glass.

The woman's eyes widened, her breath whooshing out in an indignant flutter of breaths.

"There was a sign right on them and everything," she proclaimed, and my hands finally stilled completely.

The momentum was gone.

"That just figures," she muttered, shaking her head. "That's what you get in this shitty store."

I resisted the urge to smile like an anime villain: squinted eyes, slightly open mouth crooked in a wide crescent. Eyes shining with pure insanity.

I know if I tried, I wouldn't be able to quite capture the essence of someone like Hisoka. True insanity was harder than it looked.

"Would you like me to take them off?"

This was the moment of truth. Sure, the woman could be mad. As my mother liked to point out, the cashier received the brunt of the attitude because every inconvenience, every disappointment a customer added up from their time shopping...all came out on the final face they saw before they left.

Work in customer service long enough, and you start to learn that people are liars. Work long enough getting lied to and finding out about those lies the hard way, and you begin to realize that most customers are dishonest.

Changing four dollars of the sum in total would be doable. The task could be easily accomplished with added coupons.

But I wasn't just going to jump into that.

Not unless the woman didn't give me another choice.

"I want you to fix the price," she demanded, and my stomach soured.

It was only four dollars in total. It's not a big deal, and I know if I call my SC over to help me, she would just tell me to give the woman the sale.

Happy customers were more important than doing the right thing in a place as overburdened as a grocery store.

"What was the sale, exactly?" I asked, dreading the answer.

Please don't be a quantity of three.

"The sign said three for six," the woman said, and I nearly groaned.

Pasting a placating smile to my face, I said, "To get the sale, you needed three. Is there another box over here?"

I looked, even though I knew there weren't any more pasta boxes left on my conveyor. Giving her the benefit of the doubt made it look like I'm on her side, even when I know she's just an idiot who can't properly read a sign.

It's amazing how many times customers misread a sale after practically staking their lives on its veracity.

"I got the two, so why aren't they at the sale price?"

Smiling patiently, my hands flex on my register. "You had to get the three to get the sale price. Unless you get the correct quantity, the price doesn't change for any other quantities."

"Well, Woodman's gives you the sale price no matter what the sign says."

I grimaced, nodding in a "shucks" manner.

"Sometimes, we have sales that advertise that way, too. But other sales, like this one, are specific to quantity. It says on the sign which type of sale it is."

My line, filled with two families, their kids, and a hipster-goth couple watch the scene, rapt with attention. The side of my profile facing them itches like it's on fire.

"I'm sorry, but I can't change the price outside of the correct quantity with the sale," I say as considerately as I can, my hands already continuing their ministrations. The gears begin to grind again, hoping the gentle nudge reminds the woman of the line behind her.

"Wait!" the woman snaps. "Maybe it wasn't three. I can't remember what the sign was. Isn't there anyone you could ask?"

I internally wince, my feet shifting with my discomfort.

Please don't make me call a random grocery department employee who has no idea what we're talking about. Please don't make me call my SC over here and have her hike to the pasta aisle.

"I...could call grocery..." The words leave my mouth with the severest reluctance.

Nobody's going to answer, even if I call. I'll just be wasting my time until I eventually call my SC, lengthening the wait.

"Perhaps customer service can help you? Would you like me to take them off this transaction, and you can take them over there to be sure?"

Any way out is a good one. Any reason to not call one of the departments on the phones that sometimes had the lowest volume for no apparent reason, the phones that would ring forever until the line went dead, building the anticipation in the checkline...any reason to not call was a good one.

It's only four dollars, I shout to myself. But I can't just change it now, after all this!

"Well, I guess you're just going to have to call, then," the woman said, planting her feet.

The entire checkline heaved a collective intake of breath. Someone had to because it couldn't be me.

Ears burning, I watch my line grow, the full swing of the early afternoon rush enveloping me.

The day grew no less taxing as the afternoon hours slowly dwindled to four o' clock.

At about 2:30, I was relieved from the lane and made to run around for an hour and a half on the Fastlanes.

The Fastlanes were the self-checkout station that was on the grocery side, so it was much busier than the other side, sitting at the general merchandise entrance. GM was heaven for people who enjoyed working self-check. Not only were the people generally nicer there, but there were also fewer self-check machines to deal with. It was cleaner, too, and the customers were more self-sufficient.

On the grocery side of the building, the slight chill that came from being so close to the produce went away as the sheer reality of the madness set in.

There were thirteen registers at the Fastlanes, manned by a single person. Most cashiers couldn't handle it by themselves, and since we already faced a staffing shortage, there were only a few people who could handle the insanity of the Fastlanes on a busy day.

It took me the entire hour and a half to make my rounds of filling bags, cleaning the registers, sweeping up the accumulated garbage, and removing the coupons from within each machine.

In between cleaning like my life depended on it, I had to deal with several insane families.

The asset protection guys stalked a person to the Fastlanes, then sent me forward to ask to see their receipt when they'd finished at one of the kiosks. It couldn't have been more obvious that the couple hadn't scanned half the crap in their cart, but when asked to see their receipt, a simple, "No," had followed a brisk and haughty exit, the AP guys running out the door after them.

One woman had tossed a half-opened dish of seasoned mashed potatoes at me and demanded I send someone to get her a new one, despite the fact that she'd picked up the damn thing in the first place.

After explaining to a belligerent woman that the deals in the store couldn't be doubled up with the coupons she'd clipped in the store's saving's app, I'd had to call a manager over and watch the woman complain about my unwillingness to help her right in front of my face.

My ears burning hot enough to melt off my face, I'd even had to steer an old man away from the only one of my thirteen machines that wasn't working. It only had a red basket placed over the top of it, blared with a red light, and had the screen completely pushed up in the air...

Ah, old people and machines. Never a good combo.

My shoulders drooped on my way home, overcome with the helplessness of it all. I felt like most people didn't understand how rude and stupid the general customer could be. There was only so far compassion and understanding could take an employee when faced with an entire day's worth of assholes.

The customer service industry was dying, said all the news articles. There was no such thing as customer service because most employees of large department stores were poorly trained, overworked, and underpaid. The level of viciousness in the customers kept employee morale incredibly low, which decreased output of honest work.

Whatever.

My mind was a frazzled mess as I pumped Fabvl from my broken speakers, the incessant bass blaring a little too loud for comfort. It was a volume that would upset my mother, but I didn't care at all as I turned onto my shared driveway.

Driving slightly faster than I should have when I knew there was a huge chance my neighborhood kids were already playing on the pavement, I drove past the complex of buildings and pulled into my wonderful spot. It allowed me to just pull straight out onto the next street over, giving me a better vantage to turn left onto the busy street separating my apartment from my workplace.

I slogged to my door, mind caught up in the forced apathetic daze I had fought my way toward all day. My shoulders ached from the constant bagging, tipping them down in a sideways stretch again and again until my muscles started to resist.

My key fit heavily into the door jamb. I nearly had to force the thing inside, ramming it in until my knuckles slammed against the door beneath that curved metal menace.

If any child facing puberty watched me, their instantaneous dirty jokes would only be my fault, really. I needed to fix the damn thing before someone watched me make a fool of myself.

Shoving the door open, I slouched over the threshold, nearly startling my bones from my skin as I caught a glimpse of that spiky-headed figure, now sitting on the couch with the box of kittens in his hand.

I stilled, my hand uselessly trying to pull the key from the lock behind me. With my attention diverted, the incessant tugging really only made the whole situation more tense and awkward than it should've been.

My day at work had been so hectic, pulling me into the swing of things as usual, that I'd completely forgotten all that had happened yesterday.

I'd called off of work for the first time. I'd spent the day running around, filling my car with food and clothes while simultaneously pulling from my measly savings.

Some months, I was able to look at my growing savings account and see progress.

All it took was one anime character coming to life and appearing outside my run-down apartment to make that progress disappear in a flash.

Why was it so much easier to lose money than keep it?

I'd cleaned the spare set of bedding—hidden away for years in my closet—before making up the second bedroom that was mostly used as storage. Luckily, I wasn't a hoarder, so the assortment of storage bins scattered about the slim space were mostly empty.

Sleeping with Kakashi next to my room didn't even feel real. And when I'd gotten up in the morning, the ninja had long left to investigate the area. Apparently, he hadn't returned until well after daybreak, when I'd already left for work.

It was a good thing I'd purchased a variety of men's attire. Hopefully, Kakashi had had the foresight to keep a cover on his unruly head of hair.

"Um," I stammered, my hand still fighting the key in the lock behind me. "What are you doing?"

Kakashi sat on the couch, the box of kittens empty where it lay in his lap.

Hable and Sintar were laid like chunky leeches along one of Kakashi's broad biceps.

"Feeding the kittens."