A buck 41 of crazy

Friday, 6pm and the mall is pre-Christmas swarming. Need to pop into Zellers to source a dress suitable as a gift for me mum, whose tastes roughly follow those of the Queen, minus the hats, corgis, and immense wealth.

Matronly frock nabbed, I start inching through the check-out. As usual, the shortest line turns out to be the slowest. First there's an animated coupon-waving debate over the price of a box of detergent; then a pack of tube socks is missing its SKU code; then the elderly woman ahead of me turns out to be living in her own private Idaho, and is battily hell-bent on milking as much flamboyantly deranged chatter with the cashier as possible before initiating the painfully drawn out process of rooting out her pocketbook, befuddledly opening and closing each compartment several times before finding the one that holds her cash, questioning the validity of the price of each object rung up, having to be loudly corrected five times before she hands over a sufficient amount, then needing a great deal of convincing before she'll accept that she has, in fact, been given back a quarter and not a nickel, cause hey... she may be dog-slapping nuts, but she's not fool enough to be hoodwinked out of her pocket change by some devilishly scheming con-artist disguised as a Zeller's cashier, who's busily amassing a purloined fortune 20 sneaky cents at a time.

Mini-rivers of sweat are starting to flow under my coat and down into my pants, keening to find a path homeward to the mighty St-Lawrence; but I manage to remain mostly patient. Best not to be too judgmental... another few years and that could well be me, oblivious to time, space, and the finer points of sanity.

Finally I'm through, and on to my next pressing mission; and this one's crucial. A full two days has passed during which I have been virtually out of cheddar cheese. This makes me feel anxious and vulnerable. What if I have a late-night nacho emergency? I live four blocks from a 24-hour grocery store, but it can't be relied on to stock a decently tasty chunk of everyday cheddar. Oh, sure, they'll have wee wedges of premium 10-yr-old, but it's too fine and expensive to cook with. And they'll have an entire dairy case brimming with 30 brands of mild in white, orange, marbled and skim; but that stuff's too bland to be worth eating... it just tastes like solidified milk.

Oh sure... i can get a cheese sombrero at 4am. That's handy.

At the bad-ass Provigo at the mall, however, I can score a double-sized fix of street-grade tangy old – sometimes even [exquisite shudder] EXTRA old – for under $10. But its always super busy in there... is it really worth spending 20 minutes in line to pay because I'm a slave to an irrational cheese fetish?

But, lo! As I enter, there is, most freakishly, virtually no line up at the express check out. GAME. ON!
I slalom through the usual obstacle course of shopping carts idiotically piloted by shuffling zombies, nab the sweet lacteal goods, and zip into line with just 2 people ahead of me. I can't believe my luck. I'll be out of here in 3 minutes! Its a Christmas miracle!

The cashier finishes a sale, then turns to deal with a woman who has appeared at the service counter. Just an average-looking middle-class woman in her 30s, with a bit of a dilemma – she wants to exchange 2 boxes of instant oatmeal for a box of Special K. As she's brought over to the front of the line so the cashier can scan the price codes, I'm already thinking: What the hell? She just shows up and immediately gets to jump the queue? And who the hell buys CEREAL, then changes their mind, and comes all the way back to exchange it? But whatever. It's nearly my turn. Won't take but a minute.

CASHIER: “That's $1.41.”
WOMAN (solicitously): “Its minus.”

CASHIER: ?????

WOMAN (genially indulgent): “Its minus. You owe me $1.41.”

CASHIER (frazzled): “Oh. Yes. Sorry.”

Apparently, she's a new to the job, and now we've gone off protocol. She gets on the phone and pages her supervisor.

Everyone in line starts to shift restlessly, thinking: “Oh-h-h-h. Crap. Here we go...”

We wait, some glaring off into the middle distance in an annoyed fashion.

The cashier makes a second page for assistance.

The general mood swings quite perceptibly into the “awww, FUCK ME!!” zone.

The seconds drag by like a thrubbing vacuum of slow-dripping despair. The line-up has grown exponentially, with everyone peering down the queue with cranky faces on, and doing that sighing, eye-rolling,“why the fuck is this line NOT MOVING!” pantomime.

The cashier, looking nervous about the ticking time bomb of frayed tempers that she'll be the lightening rod for, shouts out to someone for a key.

Her supervisor comes over; and after a debriefing, turns her key in the price display thingey, squints at the readout, and says to Ms. Cereally-indecisive: “You have a difference of $1.41.”

WOMAN (getting her peeve on now that she's facing an alpha opponent): “Yes! I know! You owe me $1.41.”

SUPERVISOR (warily assuming an authoritative attitude): “I'm sorry... store policy is that we don't give cash refunds.”

Woman gets her hackles up and starts pontificating in a huffy tone about how she has a cousin who works at Canadian Tire and they give refunds, bla bla bla... can't see the problem... bla bla... this is ridiculous!... bla bla bla, crap crap crappidy crap.

Cashier and supervisor are biting their lips and avoiding eye contact. Their guarded expressions say: “Oh boy... Code red! Bitch on fire!”

SUPERVISOR (steely and firm): “I'm sorry. Its store policy.”

WOMAN (worked into a nice, frothy lather of aggrieved indignation now): “I need to speak to your manager.”

I smell a pungent tide of blood pressures rising. A chorus of “tsk!”-ing ripples down the queue. We have the beginnings of an angry mob here.

Enough already. I pull a toonie out of my pocket and brandish it at the blonde Rosa Parks of non-receipt-holding cereal-rebate justice.

ME: “Here. I'll give you 2 bucks to just take your cereal and leave, so the rest of us can get on with our lives.”

WOMAN (shooting me an appalled look, as if I'm being an asshole): “No. There's a PRINCIPLE here.”

ME: “PRINCIPLE? You butt ahead of everyone, and now you want us all to wait while you argue over a BUCK FORTY ONE?!?!?? Come on! This isn't a human rights violation!”

She wasn't quite ready to give in, but seemed to realize that forces were rallying against her, and momentarily dropped her offense. The staff looked relieved at the shift in dynamic. The people next to me thanked me for trying. Somebody a bit further back applauded. There were muffled “whuf, whuf, whuf”-ish sounds of disgruntled solidarity.

At that, the woman stomped off, presumably to make a royal pain in the arse of herself up the chain of Provigo command.

The cashier tried to suppress a delighted smirk as she rang me through.
And the mega-cheese was mine.

The prize