by April Terry

I wandered into line number seven of my local grocery store with two hundred and thirty six dollars worth of groceries. Going into a shopping spree that large, you tend not to be in a hurry, but I was taken back when the lady in the line immediately asked me for my savings card. “Oh, sorry, I’ll get it, but I don’t have my regular helper today,” I explained hastily, while I started to try to remove the contents from my cart even faster since my purse was trapped under half a dozen items.

The cashier was an excessively cheerful lady with several studded crosses pinned to her name tag and apron along with a few employee awards and a smiley face or two. She asked me if I would like help emptying the cart. Misunderstanding her original question, I politely declined, but she took no notice and insisted that Jake the bagger boy start emptying my cart for me. I didn’t argue, but wasn’t sure why she seemed in such a hurry to get rid of me. Even so, I started to put in my cards and got to the business at hand.

Halfway through the process, she asked me if I needed help out to the car. I usually decline if I have only one cart because I always figure that there are plenty of people who actually need help, and so I declined, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She made an off-hand comment about Jake needing to get some air, and that was the moment when I suddenly became cognizant of my role in some situation in which I clearly knew nothing about. She said something about Jaking getting a red card, and then she followed up that comment with a joke about people who need to laugh more often. I laughed and said that I had plenty of that action and could probably deliver on that. It’s something that I am usually known for, but admittedly I had come into this line in the frame of mind to do business and get home, so I wasn’t really in that mode until the cross-bearing, employee-of-the-month cashier started to insist that I get Jake the bagger boy’s assistance and give him some air.

Jake seemed like a shy eighteen year old and he indicated that he was fine and so I guess I was being a little dense and also I didn’t want to embarrass the young man any further. Finally, the bagging was done and I went for my cart, but cashier number seven told me one more time that I needed assistance. Even though I tried to decline again, she silently mouthed, “You need Jake’s help,” and gave me a knowing look with raised eyebrows and widened eyes. I dared not miss this cue.

More than a little perplexed, I commissioned Jake the bagger boy to take my cart. At that point, I turned my attention to him and said, “Well, okay, Jake. Let’s get some air.” Jake seemed to feel like he should explain and said that he’d had a bad customer earlier.

“Some people are like that,” I sympathized, but I didn’t stop there. “So, what did you do to push this customer over the edge, Jake?” I said it laughingly with a smile that told Jake he needn’t worry about me judging.

Exasperated, he replied, “I put my hand in the handle part of his soda case, just like this.” He demonstrated how he had popped open the built-in handle by showing me on one of my packs of canned soda, “The guy just went nuts, and so I had to go get him a fresh one out of the warehouse.”

I laughed and joked, “Silly me, I thought that was what they were for.” Jake went on about it for a moment longer in frustration and I listened, but finally I gave him a smile and told him not to worry about it that some people just don’t get it. By that time, though, he had already started to smile, so I told him to have a nice evening and to try to finish off his evening in a better mood.

As I drove off, I laughed to myself at the knowledge that my assistance to Jake had little to do with anything that I did, but that it was largely due to the cashier on lane seven. She must’ve sensed something in me that told her that Jake might find a cheerful word that might somehow counteract the harshness of his most recent experience and she wasn’t about to let me slink off without joining her in helping him out. I thank her for that and, you know, I would imagine, Jake does, too.