MOTHER OF CHEESE!

Emerald Partition: There’s a Reason Some Eat Their Young.

It’s probably not the children’s fault, but it’s hard to feel that way in the moment. It’s how they were raised, it’s who raised them, it’s society. Yeah, that’s it. We’ll blame society, so I can kill everyone and not feel bad about it. Because someone NEEDS to be punished for this. Today I was visited by a pair of walking, talking, screaming advertisements for birth control.

So I was standing at a register when they came in. I was at the register because my young assistant wanted nothing more in the world than to not be at register today. And I’m a nice guy, and I was willing to help out and… I shouldn’t have done that. They came in screaming at their mother. Their mother was indulgent, shouting back at them and winding them up. This group of three only got more rambunctious as they careened through the store, grabbing whatever the children wanted and putting it in the shopping basket.

When they came to my register, I got a good look at the kids. One was six, one was seven. I know this, because of things she yelled at them as they were shouting their way through their shopping excursion. The elder was what I would call over weight. Not chubby, not a little big, but genuinely obese. I have a problem with this, because it’s just so sad to look at. This isn’t a fat little kid that needs to have a few less meals, or maybe a run around the block or something. This isn’t a fat kid like the fat kids we had when I was his age. Not just some kid with a gut and a big ass. This was a morbidly obese child, who could barely make a fist because of the fatness of his fingers and had trouble walking because of the massive legs.

Someone, at some point, must have gotten the idea that blocking his mouth was a good idea because the child had a pacifier that he was screaming incoherently around while he was angry as hell at getting his way. His brother was near tears with the frustration of no one telling him no and giving him a good smack across the head. I’m firmly against child abuse and am willing to take my belt to any adult in order to teach them it’s not a good way to solve a disagreement. However, I so wanted to belt these two with all the manly strength at my disposal.

Upon being told they had to give me the toys, so I could scan them and put them in bags, one of them literally started screaming. He didn’t want to give them up, they were his, he owned them by divine right and it was the will of all mighty Bob that he should have these things. I managed to get one of the things away from him through the sort of trick I use to get bears to not eat me when I’m in the wild (you look right into their eyes and growl instructions softly) and upon putting the Frisbees in the bag, the child fell to the ground and had a fit. This was a real fit by the way, not a normal fit. He was kicking and screaming and beating the floor with his fists and the back of his head.

Why was he doing this? It seems I didn’t separate the toys into separate bags because these lovely little angels didn’t want to risk the idea of sharing. I very nearly put everything into one big bag out of spite, but it occurred to me if the little monster split his head open on the floor I would have to clean his blood up.

The problems didn’t stop there, but I don’t want to bore you with all the screaming and shouting, or the fact that the older child never took the pacifier from his mouth and merely screamed at his mother around it. The thing is, they weren’t angry that their mother was denying them, they were angry that she wasn’t acquiescing quickly enough. That their demands weren’t being anticipated, and that upon pointing it out, the correction wasn’t coming instantaneously.

Half way during one of the many rises (or falls, it’s all a blur now) the woman looked at me with a weak smile and said “They’re such spoiled brats” and I just got on with my work because A) I wanted to get this group the hell out of my store and B) The only response I could have mustered at that point would have been to backhand her one and I don’t think the company would have my back on this one. They wouldn’t have called it an appropriate response.

When they left, I managed to get away for lunch, and hid in a training room reading a book for half an hour. I couldn’t sit in the break room because someone was already there and didn’t realize that you don’t need to shout into modern phones. So I hid out where I could.

The Emerald Partition: Bleach

I was approached by a woman, who stumped me for a second.

“Does this bleach kill germs?” She asked.

Now, of course I know the answer... and that's what worried me. I mean, do bulls have utters? That stops you for a second, because you think the answer should be obvious, and yet the person asking must have a good reason for asking, right? So for a moment, you end up going “Wait, do bulls have utters?”

“Pardon?” I asked, holding my hand to my ear so as to pretend that I was having a hearing problem.

“This bleach, does it kill germs?” She asked. “I want the kind of bleach that kills germs. I don’t want bleach that doesn’t kill germs.”

Now, most bleaches in the world, being a solution of sodium hypochlorite, do manage to whack a germ or two. It can be pretty nasty stuff, particularly when drunk straight from the bottle. That was what threw me for a moment. All bleach kills germs. She wasn’t finished though.

“I’m cleaning the bathroom today. I want to kill germs. Does this brand kill germs? I don’t want to buy something that doesn’t kill the germs. I wanna kill germs.”

I am not exaggerating, or playing up for comic effect. I am simply reporting, word for word, what this person said to me.

Now, what I said was “Yes, that bleach will kill the germs. Remember to dilute it with water though, or the fumes will be too strong.”

What I thought was “No ma’am, killing germs has been ruled to be cruel by the UN Security council. Bleach is no longer permitted to kill germs. These days it just makes bitchy comments about it’s hair and dress sense, in hopes that the germs will get the idea that it’s not wanted and go away on it’s own.”

Buuuuut, I didn’t.

The Great Emerald Partition Almond Conspiracy

So some of you may know that I’m currently paying the bills by working at a pharmacy with a convenience store attached to it. I don’t want to say the name, but it’s a national chain, one of if not the largest, and it has an Emerald Partition in it. If you’ve got a punny mind, or a thesaurus handy, you might be able to guess where it is.

So, at the Emerald Partition, we’ve got our own nice store brand and one of the things we sell are almonds. We’ve got a bunch of different kinds, but they were on sale this week. Now, I don’t want to portray our customers as vultures or anything, but the fact is that when our brand of almond goes on sale, people scoop them up. They were 2/$5 this week, which means you get about 18 ounces for 5 bucks. Compare that to the price of Blue Diamond almonds, which are $4 for 6 ounces. Mind you, Blue Diamond goes on buy one get one free sale once a month or so. I like Blue Diamonds flavors better, but if you just want normal salted almonds, they’re about the same.

AAAANYWAY! Our sales start Sunday and end Saturday, so there were NO almonds left this morning. Ah, but this was Truck Day, which is held in reverence by the customers and contempt by the employees. I have neither contempt nor reverence. It’s just a day like any other. I neither feel fear, nor elation about it. It’s just another event to be endured. That however, is neither here, nor there.

What you must understand is that the almonds were on sale, this was the last day of the sale and we were out of almonds for the time being. I was standing idle, waiting in quiet anticipation for the moment when the truck would arrive, when I was approached by an old man.

The old man scowled at the place where the almonds were not, and then looked at me, continuing to scowl because I didn’t have the good grace to flinch from his steely gimleted gaze. I have a rule at work, the bigger the smile, the less I mean it. I was giving a rather wide smile, one that looks a little too pleased with the situation, but doesn’t actually show any teeth. When I show teeth with that grin, people claim I look like I’m about to go for their throats. You have to smile though, otherwise the bastards know they’re getting to you, and you can’t let the bastards know they’re getting to you.

“You got anymore of these sale almonds?” The old man barked, with a voice that wants you to believe he saw D-Day. The problem with that is, he couldn’t have been more than 75 or possibly a well preserved 80. Let’s say he was 80, which would have made him about 13 at the end of the war. So if anything, he was a drain on resources and working for the Nazis during WWII.

“We’re all out right now sir.” I said politely and airily, as if the subject mattered little more than a butterfly’s fart. “They tend to go fast when they’re on sale and…” I did not get to finish.

For you see my dears, my darlings, this fellow was going to instruct me on economics. He was going to tell me why we really didn’t have almonds. Strange to relate, supply and demand weren’t the mainstays of his lecture.

“It’s because they know people want ‘em!” This old Nazi collaborator snapped.

“Oh?” I asked, with an air that invited more. You see, I treat every interaction with a customer the way hostage negotiators treat the nut with the AK-47. Always friendly, never contradictory, keep them talking, keep them thinking your on their side. Right now, keeping him talking seemed the wisest choice of action.

“You see, they put them on sale because they know they won’t have ‘em.” The man explained. “They know people want ‘em, so they don’t send you any. See, they don’t want people to be able to buy almonds.”

Now, I try to be reasonable. I don’t just tell people they’re idiots when they rant about how Obama is a French Canadian Presbyterian terrorist. I listen with attention when someone explains that it’s okay for the pope to rape children because he’s infallible and as such what he’s doing to kids can’t be rape. I even try to follow along when someone tells me that Bachman-Turner Overdrive woman was right to say we should open our embassies in Iran that we closed them in 1980 just so we can close them again. This had me stymied for a moment, because you can’t show your obvious contempt for the terrorist according to the negotiator’s rules.

Oh, and he wasn’t done.

“It’s a conspiracy!” He claimed, and I deserve a medal for valor, strength and extreme sexiness for not busting out laughing. “They want to keep people from being able to buy these almonds at the low price, they’ll only send you almonds after they jack up the price. That’s how it works, they keep the almonds from the people, see?”

Because that’s how a store works. You know people want to buy something, so you don’t sell it to them, right? I swear to god, at any moment I thought he was going to bring the Jews into it. He was very much the type and I’m not giving anything like the full rant here because trying to follow that rabbit hole would be never coming back without the help of some serious mushrooms. I could just hear him though, telling me that the Jews were working hard to keep almonds out of the hands of decent Americans who only want a fair shake and could have one if that Obama wasn’t hiding his learner’s permit from the white man! He kept going on though, never quite getting to the point of insinuating exactly who they were or why they were so enamored of jerking the chain of those who just wanted a can of almonds. All I know is that Almonds = SRS BSNS!

I mulled over my options, including just going all John Rambo and doing the guy in with a glass bottle of planter’s sitting next to my hand. I could sully my blade, but it’s a small knife and I would have to really work at it to finish him off, and I like a quick kill. Instead of blood shed, I went with the most honest answer I could come up with that might mean everyone got to go home alive.

“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “Our truck is going to arrive in a few minutes. If you come back this afternoon, I’m sure there will be more almonds on it.”

“We’ll see.” He screwed up his face and squinted one eye at me. “We’ll see at that.”

And so the old man left the store, deprived of his almonds because They were keeping them from him. The truck came, I went to help unload it, and what do you suppose was on the truck? What do you suppose was one of the first things I stocked? A boat load of ALMONDS! Because they knew we’d had them on sale and they knew we sell a lot of them and they knew we needed more of them. I raised my fist in solidarity with my brothers, the ones who had brought the almonds.

Almonds for The People!

But you have to hurry, sale ends tonight.