Price check on till four

Customers: 309. Asked if I was “having a good day”: 41. Waited for the answer: 3.

Opened till 4 at 7:00. Till 4 has a scanner that only likes things held at a certain angle. I know the angle. Nobody else does. That is why I am on till 4 and have been since 2004.

A man asked if the bananas were “these ones on offer.” They were not. The ones on offer were the other ones. I said so. He looked at me like I had moved them myself, at night, to spite him.

At 10:15 a woman presented a coupon for 40 cents off a cereal we stopped stocking in March. The coupon expired in June. She said that was “a technicality.” I explained the till would not accept it. She asked for the manager.

The manager is Craig. Craig is 31 and owns a scooter. Craig came over, read the coupon, read it again, and gave her 40 cents out of the till. Then he walked off before I could close the drawer. So now my drawer is 40 cents down and I get to write a little note about it. I wrote: “Craig.”

Things people put on the belt today that I have to touch:

• A rotisserie chicken, unbagged, leaking.
• A child’s shoe. Not for sale. Just a shoe.
• Eleven cans of cat food and one bottle of wine. That one I understood.

The young ones on the self-checkouts get shouted at by the machine all day. Unexpected item in bagging area. I told Kayleigh, who is nineteen, that you get used to it. She asked how long it took. I said twenty-two years. She did not laugh. Neither did I, to be fair.

At 3:50 a regular, Mr. Haddad, came through with his usual: milk, two tins of soup, one lemon. He always says “see you tomorrow, Beverly.” I do not know what he does with one lemon a day. I have never asked. Some things you leave alone.

Feet: bad. Back: middling. Cashed up 40 cents short. Note in the drawer for Craig. Home by 4:30.