Page 8 of His Wounded Heart

Who would have guessed it, but the little rugrat’s whine doesn’t get on my nerves.

“Sir? Can you put your things on the conveyor belt?”

I look up and realize that I’m holding things up. “Right.”

I place things in order, exactly how I want them to be put in the bags so they will be evenly distributed and nothing will get crushed. I have the cart unloaded before the clerk has the second item scanned, but then she starts taking things out of order. Of course, she grabs the bread with the bottles of juice.

Down the line it goes, and the bored bagger puts them both in the flimsy plastic bag, and shoves them into my cart, and I watch as the bag tips over with the three bottles of juice landing on the loaf of bread.

“I’m going to need a new loaf of bread,” I say to the cashier.

“What?”

“New bread, that one’s crushed,” I point to the first bag in my cart.

“What?”

I have to work really hard to understand her, since she had a huge wad of gum in her mouth, which is another thing that doesn’t help keep me calm. I motion over to the cart. “Take that sack out of the cart,” I command the young bagger.

“What?” he asks.

Really? Is that the only word Roger has taught his employees to use with customers?

“Young man, take the bag out of the shopping cart.” He looks at me with a deer in the headlights look, his arms hanging at his sides. “Now!” I bark.

Still nothing.

I refuse to do it for him. He needs to learn.

I look at his name tag. He is obviously new since there’s masking tape over the old name, and written in Sharpie is the name Dennis.

“Dennis. You’re the bagger, correct?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

Of course he mumbles.

I carefully enunciate. “Take the bag that you just put into my cart, out of the cart, and put it back onto the conveyor belt.”

“Why?”

I consider him. It isn’t insubordination; it is curiosity. Someone has trained him to do only one thing, and anything new in his repertoire is confusing. But I don’t have the patience.

“I’ll show you why after you do exactly what I told you to do.”

He shrugs his skinny shoulders and swings the bag out and drops it onto the belt. I wince. Naturally, the bottle of juice slams on top of the bread.

“Ooops.” I hear the word being whispered behind me. It’s the brunette with the big brown eyes.

“Dennis, take everything out of the bag,” I order the boy.

“Mister, you’re holding up the line,” the cashier says.

Who would have guessed it? I can actually understand her around the wad of gum.

“I’m the customer, and right now I need you or your bagger to procure me a new loaf of bread.”

“Procure?” Dennis tilts his head to the side.