jena

Oh no! You didn't!


Can you help waskanuaurld!!

If I ever see Kip again, I'm going to have him record a serenade for you.

I feel guilty about not leaving some little tome for a response.

Interesting...I could see him in that role. Hope it doesn't get into his head too much.

One of the many summers I groced we had a large display of watermelon right up front by the registers. I was working register 5 and my neighbor was register 6, the 12 items or fewer (we made it a point to get that grammatically correct) line. Having a giant display of anything next to the express checkout isn't the greatest idea because people become distracted and forget why they got into that line in the first place, but having a display of something that must be carefully scrutinized is even worse.
Watermelons, in the eyes of most shoppers, require a high level of knocking, hefting, sniffing, and prodding to ensure proper selection. Over the years I had adopted a rather blase, almost hostile attitude towards this manhandling of the product, and when greeted with the inevitable "Is this ripe?" my answer was as follows: "Is it in the store? When was the last time you bought an under ripe watermelon? They don't pick them until they're ready to sell."
Not everyone enjoyed this blunt approach to my perceived truth about watermelon farming, but in truth I had never seen an under ripe watermelon in my many years of both consuming and selling said produce.
Regardless, not all of my coworkers had the tenure, expertise, and general "fuck it" attitude I had come to adopt towards this and many other inane customer questions. On this particular summer's day, a mid-thirties mom-type with no kids present and the sort of tousled, who gives a shit look about her that marked her as a classic "time eater" decided to ask my relatively new and guileless coworker manning the express lane if the particular melon she had painstakingly chosen was ripe enough.
"I don't know," said my black-clad, 'only doing this shit for the summer,' coworker. She then turned to a young black mother who happened to be nearby checking her own watermelon for freshness. "What do you think, is it ripe?"
I remember immediately flinching a bit and thinking, this is not good.
Of course, the woman immediately launched into all the old tropes about watermelon, race, and so on. My coworker (who's defense was she was asking a mother and not a race) stood in the path of the barrage and I could see that this moment was one of her last on the job.
I relearned an important lesson that day. Don't be a fucking idiot.

Some hair comes, some hair goes. Such is aging.

Enjoy and indulge. I'm actually on a mini-break myself.