I really think that some of the people that work at Safeway should find another line of business. Most of them are really nice, but there are a few bad apples that just make me crazy (not that it takes much to make me crazy though!). Or maybe I should start shopping elsewhere…..
So it’s the end of the month, I am so broke it’s pitiful–to the point of scrounging pennies off the floor, out of dresser drawers, etc as well as cashing in water bottles and pop bottles for the deposit. Not to mention I ride the bus everywhere, which becomes germane to this story really quickly.
I managed to scrape together two full rolls of pennies (50 cents per roll, so $1.00) and 10 pop/water bottles (at 5 cents apiece that’s another 50 cents).
I am desperate for my ice cream bar fix, and I know they cost $1.39, so off I go to Safeway (first mistake). I grab my ice cream bar and am waiting in the express lane to be checked out. They open a second express lane, and I go over there (second mistake).
First, the checker (Ron, although I’d like to call him other names) says ‘were you next in line?” No, I wasn’t, he already knew that and was trying to embarrass me, but geeze louise I had ONE lousy item, and the person behind me–who had been next in line–didn’t care and told him so.
He rings up my ice cream bar and deducts the 50 cents for the bottle refund, and I hand him the two rolls of pennies. What I did not know is that he was going to open the rolls and count out 89 cents, which normally wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I was already pretty disgusted with the ‘were you next in line’ bit–and I only had 5 minutes to walk from Safeway to the bus stop as it was.
He just had to be sure I wasn’t trying to cheat Safeway out of a few pennies or stick a bunch of Canadian pennies in the rollers. If I were trying to rip off Safeway, it sure wouldn’t be over one lousy ice cream bar that cost a whopping $1.39!
I wouldn’t have bothered rolling the darn pennies in the first place had I known what was going to happen. I find it amusing though that he handed me back 11 cents in pennies—89 cents + 11 cents = $1.00 so there was no attempt to cheat on my part; however, there was an attempt (two attempts in fact) to irritate me no end on his part! It worked too!
However, the best part, the absolute best part, is that because of his ‘were you next in line’ delay, and the counting out of 89 cents delay, I missed my bus by about 30 seconds (the buses were leaving on the next run, pulling around the corner and heading down the street as I got to the bus stop).
Now this missing of my bus wouldn’t be such a big deal if I still lived in Portland, where the buses run every 15 minutes maximum (some even run as often as every 10 minutes) and where the bus shelters have some true shelter from the rain (after all, it’s Portland, where everybody and their dog has webbed feet because it rains ALL the time LOL).
No this is Bend, where most of the bus stops have no place to sit (other than the sidewalk) much less any shelter from the weather. And Bend’s buses run every 40 minutes from 6 am to 6 pm (every 80 minutes on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays)—so I got to sit in the lovely weather HA! and wait for the bus for 40 minutes.
It was so nice and balmy too
I was eating nails and spitting out tacks by that time though. I suppose I could have walked home but walking home (2 1/2 miles) in 35 degree weather struck me as a less than fun idea.
I do believe I’ll try Trader Joe’s or Albertsons for my next shopping trip!