how to be the best customer you can be:
1. Buy fresh basil. Lots of basil. But put it in a second bag so you don’t flood the belt with goopy herby water. And if you complain about your own goopy herby water, you need more sexting in your life, I guess. It's a shame you have to ruin something so wonderful with your own mediocrity as a person.
2. Buy interesting things for my attention span.
3. Your food items may not be particularly interesting to me, and your life even less so. Do not come visit unless you are sure I like you.
4. I understand that there may be an emergency and your offensive ring tone may be overly tempting, but if you take out the cell phone and proceed to talk on it while going through checkout, I will not be afraid to announce that I need a price check on your adult diapers so that your lover on the other end may or may not hear it. Worse than cell phones are those obscene BlueTooth headsets that just make you look and talk like an ass.
5. If Sam’s Club is so much better, don’t tell us about it; shop there instead. No one is stopping you. Additionally, know the name of the store in which you're shopping. Don't give the wrong store card and casually laugh it off as if you're not going to hell.
6. Refrain from waving your value card in our faces, plopping it onto the belt and making us sift through your endless collection of key chains to find it, or asking to borrow a “store card.” The store makes the card for exclusive purposes; we can’t go throwing them around liberally and trusting that everyone deserves value.
7. Once the register opens, you’re done. Don’t suddenly decide you have the change. If I were a mathematician I would have done something a lot cooler than work at a supermarket.
8. If the back of your value card is blank, and you know for a fact that it is impossible to read, don’t give it to us and expect a miracle. Give a phone number.
9. If your personality or facial features do not give you away, there is no way of telling that you are from the 609 area code. A telephone number is ten digits, give the whole thing.
10.Yes, we know that the tip of the signing pen on register seven is broken off, and yes it is still usable. If you cut all your fingernails, you would still have working fingers, correct? I know you’re dying to make yourself useful, but it’s common sense.
11. Bag your own groceries and we will make you a shrine.
12. If you’re not in the system by telephone number, face it: no one likes you. Go to customer service and get a new card, and don’t whine when we call the service desk for you to get you a number so you can save your thirty-nine cents.
13. If after all that seeking for a new value card number (because you know for a fact that you need it because something is on sale), nothing actually turns out to be on sale, you are a failure.
14. Learn how to add eighty cents over and over again if you really like yogurt. Yogurt is, and will always be, eighty cents. Don’t even think about arguing that it scanned differently.
15. Just because I work here doesn’t mean I know anything about the store. Customer service was invented for your insignificant queries.
16. It’s really not worth the effort to put all your groceries on the belt and then suddenly realize you forgot your reusable bags and run all the way back to your car to get them while we’re ringing you up just so you can save four cents a bag. Just think logically. And your own plastic bags from other stores are not reusable bags and you never deserved those four cents anyway.
17. Who buys obscure produce? If you put an unidentified vegetable on the belt and walk away, at least know what it is so it can be scanned. I don’t have all the answers, unfortunately.
18. Sometimes things go wrong. Be patient, I have to deal with one hundred of you a day. Don’t just get all offended because your scallops are ringing up the wrong way and storm out of the store without having bought anything.
19. “Hi, how are you.” It’s a nice little greeting. I don’t care if you just found your significant other is really some alien being sent to spy on the human race and is incapable of loving, just say you’re well and ask me and I’ll answer the same and we can get somewhere. Don’t ignore the question altogether and throw your items onto the belt if I’m taking my effort to greet you. Maybe I really really care about your personal well-being.
20. Be nice to your kids, it makes us feel happy and young inside. If your kids are annoying and shout the names of political figures over and over again, then it’s okay to slap them across the face and shut them up. Bring babies, quiet babies. And bring kids who are actually cute.
21. We do have some stupid rules. Don’t tell us they’re stupid. Just buy your novelty ice cream and take the discount and have a nice day.
22. If you see the cashier is standing there with a blank face ready for a customer, do not ask if his or her register is open. Again, common sense can brighten someone’s day.
23. Conversely, if you see the cashier is counting money or something to that effect, do not throw your items on the belt. You will fail miserably at your life for the next five minutes.
24. Anything in red on the screen means it is the price being taken off your purchase because of a sale. Do not ask questions. Indulge in the pleasure of seeing the red numbers.
25. Don’t get crazy about the coupons. It’s not worth the effort to ask all those questions if you are trying to get twenty cents off your purchase. If you really need the money to make your life less pathetic, calmly tell me in person and I will gladly help you out after my shift.
26. Speak English, please.
27. The gallons of milk go straight to the lower back. It may be amusing to watch us bag your eight gallons of it, but we also do that for everyone else for five hours. Do it yourself. Same goes for watermelons. Suck it up.
28. We are nice enough to bag your disgusting items. Do not then complain that something is too heavy or too light. Your bags are perfect, as we learn every day to be the best baggers we can be. Submit to this fact.
29. Don’t be the annoying regular who asks us every day if Miley Cyrus has been to the store today. This doesn’t even make sense.
30. Do not tell your child to give his candy bar to the “lady” or the “woman.” A teenage girl is a “girl.”
31. Yes, we have name tags, but it’s creepy to call us by the name on it, unless we actually know each other.
32. Don't hand us a big sheet of coupons. Make yourself a little bit useful and instead of using circumlocution when we ask you to cut them and hand them to us, just take the tiny bit of effort to rip them off.
33. Coupons are to be used in moderation, so don't try to make any excuse to use all of them at once or trick us. As Will said in Shakespeare in Love, don't give it all away at once.
34. Buy roasted chicken. Who doesn't want to smell that?
35. Okay, your best friend from third grade, neighbor, college roommate, or scandalous love affair does not give you an excuse talk or scream "OHMYGODHIIIII [and so on]" through your checkout. Calmly acknowledge said acquaintance with dignity, then when you're done checking out you may talk to one another. I'm not excited, so why should you be?
36. Wait your turn. Don't shove things in my face prematurely.
37. Be happy. You are having a supermarket experience.
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