Hear ye, hear ye all ne'er do well grocery baggers! I'm a single man. That should be obvious. I have no life and I play a lot of video games. But single men grocery shop. And nnooo, we don't just buy beer, Cheeto's, and hot dogs (though those are still staples of my basic shopping list). Just like you regular folks who are married and have little miniature jerk versions of you running around, we singles have to eat, drink, and wipe our butts as well.
Bagging isn't rocket science. You can give a monkey the basic workings of bagging groceries and he'll still get it right 70% of the time (that percentage was derived from tireless scientific study and numerous attempts at replication). Unfortunately for the human race, that's a higher percentage than most teenage kids standing at the end of the check-out line asking "Paper or plastic?"
Let me just say that I believe I have a right to complain about this travesty. I consider myself a young man. Yes, I'm 28 (okay, maybe a TAD bit older) years old but think I'm pretty hip for my age. I mean, Dokken and Ratt are still pretty popular right? RIGHT?? Anyway, back in my day I had the pleasure of working in a supermarket in the heart of Lake County, Florida. I started in the fall of 1991 and worked myself up from part-time bagger (or Front Desk Courtesy Clerk as it’s called now), to part-time stockman, to full-time stockman until I ended my stint in 1995 and joined the Army. So when I talk about grocery baggers, I like to think I have a little street-cred.
There I was, a little punk metalhead finally working at my first real job. I was proud. I still continued to cut my grandmother’s lawn and do odd landscaping jobs in the neighborhood for extra cash, but now I was a working man! I remember my first paycheck. I spent all $34 of it on a guitar tablature book with a shitload of Megadeth tunes. It felt like the first thing I ever truly owned.
Bagging groceries isn’t a glamorous life. You’re often relegated to grocery cart duty which in my case, was spending 8 or 12 hours on the weekend out in the hot Florida sun rounding up carts that found themselves abandoned in the farthest corners of the blazing tarmac or across the goddamn street in the mall parking lot. We didn’t have those fancy cart corrals. Oh no, you had to carefully maneuver carts in between cars, praying that the car you just accidentally scraped wasn’t witnessed by anyone. I carried a box-cutter to threaten bystanders if they said anything. Man, I was a jerk. Still am actually! Also baggers are the janitors of the store. From cleaning nasty ass bathrooms, to sweeping, mopping, and cleaning up spills, it’s certainly not a job for the squeamish. Staying late to clean up the store after closing was a common occurrence for me. So what I’m saying is that I understand the hardships of this menial job.
What I don’t understand is this tendency of not caring for the customer. When I grocery shop and finally have to hit the check-out line, I like to try and set these kids up for success. Call me anal (that was rhetorical, please don't call me anal) but I place my groceries on the conveyer belt in a succinct order. If the cashier’s just there, then I’ll understand why she (or he) can’t exactly concentrate on if the cold should be separated from the dry. But when a bagger is there, that’s their job. They should be paying attention. As they watch my cases of Mountain Dew and Bud Light roll down to them, they automatically should know “These go straight into the cart.” BAM! Easy right? Suddenly here comes a mess of frozen burritos, pizza, TV dinners, hot dogs, milk, etc… Their minds should be processing “Okay, all of these are cold items. The person that graciously set this up wants plastic which makes this even easier. Thus, all cold items should be placed in plastic bags.” I know, I know. This is a “Duh” moment. You’d be surprised. Next comes any canned food and non-refrigerated drinks, then non-edible stuff like toilet paper, mildew cleaner, 20 packs of condoms (I buy 20 packs every time – I try to look studly and always give a wink to the cashier. One dude cashier kind of got weird, but everyone else was cool. In any case, I have a Costco surplus of condoms now).
I try not to watch this bagger. I like to think everything will turn out fine in the end. This kid is going to be that special bagger I’ve been dreaming of for so long. The one who separates cold from dry and non-edible from edible. The first thing I notice as I steer my cart out of the store is that several of the 12-packs of Mountain Dew I bought are conveniently placed in plastic bags. Okay, no big deal, I can easily remove the bags and continue on. At my car, as I load up my trunk (while keeping a strategically placed foot under my cart's wheel – the place looks flat but it must be on a goddamn hill since if I don’t do this it rolls away) I notice that a paper towel roll is in a bag by itself. “Curious” I think. Then the bombshell hits me - Formula 409 bathroom cleaner sits in the same bag as a pack of hotdogs. NNOOO!!! Blood starts simmering. I check other bags and find 3 cans of soup mixed in with my frozen burritos. Blood temperature rises. My pack of tomatoes and some lettuce are at least in a bag together but they also share space with some lightbulbs and matches! WTF??? Blood is boiling.
Quickly I load everything back into my cart and race into the store. I immediately address the store manager and inform him of the stupidity of his staff. I purposely set these dimwits up for success and they fail spectacularly every time. “What exactly do you manage?!” I exclaim and question at the same time. “Do you actually train people or do you just give the keys to the front door let them roam free like a pack of hyenas?” With a fury I dump my cart over spilling the contents onto the floor. Many of the staff look at me in confusion…and fear…yes…I see and smell fear. This is good. I find the bagger who was responsible and scream at him “Pick this shit up and try again buddy! We can stay here all day for all I care, but you’re gonna get this right. Yes, that’s it, that’s a package of frozen peas. Now which product would you bag with them wi- nope, nooo…that’s Glade Air-Freshener…no, that’s a can of chili but I’m proud, you’re learning. Chili is a food item. Okay, yes, you’re fine with sticking that in with the yogurt.” And on and on and on.
As I hold the store hostage, the police come and try to coax me out, but I’m not having it. It has been 12 hours and still this jackass hasn’t packed my groceries right. Eventually the supermarket is raided and I’m killed in a hail of bullets while holding a plastic bag in my right hand and a paper bag in the left. The customers cheer and I become a national hero. All grocery store chains immediately begin effective training programs where baggers all over the world become experts at what they do. A new era of pride in the workplace expands. Iran stops saber-rattling and Akchmasoudaninijad acknowledges that because a local Iranian grocer packed his bags correctly, he will cancel all nuclear ambitions and he apologizes for his Holocaust comments, etc...
Then I wake from my daydream, close the trunk of my car, ram the cart back into a corral, and leave happy in the knowledge that I don’t have to come back to this shithole for at least another 2 weeks.
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