That day I entered Metro like a man possessed. I was in a big hurry; I had to get out and get home because there was company coming and I needed to start cooking right away.
I looked through the double metal doors but didn’t see him. Good, I thought, Bagger Bastard’s Day Off. Someone else will bag my groceries. It was like a tire filled with gasoline had been removed from around my neck.
Still, I was wary. He could be on break. He could be in The Back, through those double doors that all the stock people and loaders came out of. Yes, indeed, I thought, as I fondled a pineapple, he could be there.
But it was comparatively quiet. I’d picked the time specifically for it to be quiet. I didn’t know his hours or days, but I knew that this was the time that blue-hairs came to shop.
I was hunting through the jumbo shrimp when I heard the dreaded “Sylvain, please come to the cash.” Could his name possibly be Sylvain? Nooo, that was such a common name here. Anyone could be a Sylvain. But I stepped up my pace. Jumbo shrimp, $9.99 a pound. Excellent deal. I shoved a bunch into the provided plastic bag. Wine. I had to get the wine. But what if I encountered him on Aisle 8? Was it worth going through the extended hunt-and-peck scenario of looking through the advertised specials? The pull-out coupon section had corn two for one but I wasn’t in the mood to tear the coupons. I hurriedly pushed the cart through Aisle 4, left it there and went and grabbed the first wine I could off the shelf. It turned out to be a Christophe D’Albray. I’d scored! $7.99 for two. Well, one was going to have to be good enough.
I slunk through the cereal and breads section. I wasn’t taking any chances. I kept glancing at the double doors of The Back. People came and went, but they were stockers and grocery clerks. Not Him.
Okay. I held my breath; it was time. It was time to go to the cash and pay. I was instantly seized with a dilemma: should I go to cash number one, because I had less than eight items? Or cash number four? The cashier on four was usually Manon, the only cashier whose name I knew. But would she be there? Would she protect me from
Bagger Bastard?
I moved somewhat surreptitiously down the oils and spices aisle and pulled up my collar. Out I came into the space between the aisles and the cash. Quick look: Bagger Bastard was nowhere to be seen.
I decided quite arbitrarily to go to cash number 6, because it seemed a new guy was working. He’d give me no trouble. So I lined up behind a blue hair and kept my head down. She did the usual, counting out her purchase with pennies, so I was ready to rumble. No bagger at all! I’d bag my own! She finally counted out the pennies and the cashier took it. “Safe!” I exulted. “Safe!”
I was lifting the garlic out of the cart when the shadow fell across the conveyor. It was Bagger Bastard. Where? Wha . . .? How? My mind raced.
“Can I Put This in a Bag for You Sir?” came the dreaded words. I quailed, reeled as if physically assaulted. “Yes, please,” I said meekly — too meekly. But he’d won again.
Just as the cashier rang me up, Bagger Bastard got a sudden call from one of the head counter workers. He calmly walked away and left all the groceries on the conveyor. All my hard-earned groceries would yet again not be bagged. Foiled! By Bagger Bastard!
I swear I’ll get him next time.
Baggers.
ReplyDeleteVolunteer baggers. People trying to earn money for their groups, ping pong team, baton twirler society, crabwalk soccer tournament. The Independent Grocery store in Hawkesbury (not Independent at all, Loblaw's ownership) generously allows these amateur baggers to operate. One cannot escape them. Same with Price Chopper's, you can't dodge them, even in the express aisle.
Try as I might to be as fast as I can through the lineup, putting down the copies of US and People that I've been devouring as I wait (why buy when you can read in line and discard?), invariably the woman in front of me takes 5 minutes to put her change back into her purse, blocks the way forward and half of my purchases have already passed the scanner without me eyeballing the amounts (making more work for me as I have to scan the receipt to make sure I wasn't charged imported hothouse tomato grown by poisoned people in Mexico price for the anaemic pink thing grown in an Ontario hothouse in Windsor à la Nino Ricci that I purchased) before I can get anywhere near the bagging station.
Bags.
I've brought my own bags to grocers for years, and have been treated like a pariah. A cashier at Price Choppers in Hawkesbury asked me what I wanted to do with the bags I brought, that I had laid down on the conveyor belt before my groceries. She was stunned when I told her to put my purchases in them. (I'm not making this story up)
Now I'm cool, with the times. Not quite. My bags aren't the store bags that cost money and crackle. Nope, my bags are cotton and people have given them to me over years. Hendrik Eilskou from Fairplay Shipping gave me 4!!! cotton bags. My husband went to New York and brought me a Zabar's bag. I was on Bornholm and brought a cotton bag back from the public library. I have one from Nuuk, from Greenland's National Library but there is no way in hell I'm letting beef leak juice and stain that thing. I've got a bag from the Law Librarian's conference in Ottawa, May 2007. Those robber barons at Springer Publishing gave me one too. Brother sewing machines in Finland are proudly displayed on my purchases. An so on. My bags have character.
And the volunteer baggers are stunned. They can't deal with it. The pork chops (great butcher @ Indep., good cuts of meat) goes next to the ammonia. Great, what's for dinner? Porc à l'urine de vache. Asparagus stuffed, yes, stuffed, those tender tips, next to cans of Blue menu black bean soup (too much work to make from scratch). Ace bakery baguette jammed in with the cat food. What the hey? Unbleached flour bread is chewy anyway right?
And then, the dirty look when the $5 tip doesn't come, for the worthy groups, for wrecking my grocery bagging, when I'm begging to do it myself. Plus, I'd rather give more to the twirlers and get a tax receipt, not illegal at all, but have my groceries bagged by a pro, or do it myself.
Can't these people do a car wash instead to earn money?
Oh Christ, don't even get me started. Uhh, I hate to be any KIND of prejudiced against the uhh, umm, how do I put this, umm, mentally challenged? Yes, that's politically correct, isn't it? Or is there a new word now? but in Oakland, CA they have umm, mentally challenged people managing the bagging line at Safeway. Umm, okay, okay, okay.
ReplyDeleteBut couldn't they be plucking chickens at the local poultry farm? They'd be quicker.
Bagger Bastard lives on! He'll never live to actually bag anything! He'll always have a mission instead of bagging my groceries!
Long live Bagger Bastard! Next installment soon.
This is great!
ReplyDeleteThanks, kiddo! I'll have to draw a new strip. I will after I come back from Japan.
ReplyDelete