charmin school

[docmanhattan]

Why do cashiers always look at me sideways when I request "no bag, please" for a multipack of toilet paper? The woman at Target today asked me twice to confirm, and it's not the first time this has happened

Comments

[shashalnikya]

Next time include a pack of condoms, some vaseline, popsicle sticks and five boxes of Jell-o.

[docmanhattan]

The funny thing is, usually my Target runs make me look like I'm running a meth lab... decongestant, brake fluid, batteries, 12-pack of Red Bull. And never a peep about it from the till.

This was the most dowdy list today, cat food and cleaning (house and body) stuff, and I get the side-eye.

[docmanhattan]

"Your new copy of Gigantic Asses has arrived."

[lietya]

"Or have the hipsters started using colorful scarves (having run out of other inane uses for them), and I'm just getting eyerolls because I'm still using the MySpace of personal cleansing?"

Well, that made me emit unladylike snorts of laughter at my desk.

If it's any consolation - and it probably won't be - they do the same thing for Feminine Products [tm], the details of which I will not spell out lest your manly sensibilities be so insulted as to send you into a swoon. Apparently even if *you'd* survive the realization that such things exist and actual women sometimes buy them, they don't want to take the chance that innocent passers-by might suffer permanent damage by that revelation.

I won't tell you the story of the toddler and the display toilet, then...

[docmanhattan]

What I don't get is that essentially everything in a Target is out on the shelves, and they're not in the business of stocking stuff people don'n buy. That tube of Prep. H or that Blu-Ray disc of The Notebook doesn't get any more embarrassing when it's in your possession.

[abhor]

That's so strange... half of the stores I go to the cashiers will just attach a paper handle (piece of paper with the store's name and colours with tape on each end) to the top of the TP package without offering a bag. I don't see anything wrong with people seeing evidence that confirms I wipe my ass.

My pet peeve about shopping is that, if I'm not going to a grocery store, bringing my own bag(s) apparently means bagging my own stuff. I'm not above bagging, but after going in my pocket to get my debit and then seeing the cashier looking at me like I should get my stuff and go already feels weird.

[docmanhattan]

Oh, totally. Especially with all the supermarkets around here where half the lanes are scan-your-own. If I'm waiting for a full service cashier, I implicitly would like full service.

(Of course, the bag-as-you-go hand scanners cut all that out of the equation... I used to hate it, now I'm warming up to the idea.)

[lietya]

I didn't expect to like the hand scanners, but we have come to love them. So convenient, they're fun to use, and I used to keep a running tally of how much we'd spent in my head and now I don't have to. We're allowed to use the express lane no matter how many items we have, and the whole checkout process is amazingly painless.

Plus we rarely saw a bagger these days anyway (see above re: reusable bags and vanishings of baggers), and if I'm going to be stuck bagging my own stuff regardless, I'd rather do it bit by bit and at my own pace than with a cashier glowering at me.

(I'd mind more if anyone were being laid off, but it's been about six months and so far the store is *hiring* more people. Apparently, they just have more time to spend on things like restocking and neatening, so win-win.)

[abhor]

We only have the self-serve cashiers at our grocery stores so far, and a lot of people I know love them. I'm still getting used to it, but I like the idea. I don't drive and make sure I live near minimalls or some sort of small store in case I need something right away and all of them have only one or two full service cashiers. Sometimes I feel like putting my own bags back in my pocket and saying "on second thought, I think I'd like plastic today" but I'm thinking that will just open up a new set of problems.