Ringer's Solution

I am an angry NYC chick.  How can my anger be prevented or at least assuaged, that is the question I know you are asking yourself.  All the time.  Every day.  Well, if you are a cashier in a store, here are some tips for you. You are very welcome.

• Don't drop a half dozen custom ordered donuts on the floor and then say, "I'll give you two plain donuts for free!" (What is a custom ordered donut? It is a donut shaped in a number, usually the birthday your child or an adult you wish to humiliate is celebrating, ordered in advance.)  If, for some unexplainable reason, you feel the need to open all the donut boxes to show your paid-in-advance customer every single donut, don't do it with jittery, over-caffeinated hands that cannot be trusted to open a box without dumping the contents all over your brown-tiled floors. Just because you have complete access to DD coffee does not mean you should over-fuel and then take it out on my daughter's donuts.  And then offer some boring old glazed donut in place of the ruined ones and act like this is a freebie I should be grateful for.

• If I come up to you, let's say in a newly renovated Duane Reade (they have produce now?!), and ask you where the flashlights are, do not give the following response: "Will you be here for a while? Because I was just going to the toilet. Maybe after that I can look and if I happen to find a flashlight downstairs I will come up and tell you." Several things here.  Don't tell me you are going to the bathroom.  Don't call it a toilet (unless you pronounce it like Archie Bunker, because that is hysterical and then you may only call it a toilet and you must tell me every time you go).  Don't tell me that maybe you will look and maybe you will come back up with it - or maybe not.  I, the customer, will not know for a good 10 minutes whether you are even returning to the sales floor, with or without my merchandise, and I don't like my odds.

• Let's say I am paying for some nail polish remover, again let's say at a Duane Reade.  It is a little odd if you, the cashier, take this opportunity to ask me if I think you can get yourself some Tom's shoes at Harry's Shoes.  Sure, you need to know this information, and probably even soon, so you can stroll down there on your break and pick up a pair of the primitively hideous, albeit altruistic shoes - but is asking the customer you are ringing up really the best way to determine the answer to your shopping question? OK, in this particular case your customer, me, is the best way to answer pretty much any shopping question, but the next customer would not be. Although, with the apparent frequency with which I visit Duane Reade, it is pretty likely that I will be your next customer, so perhaps this really is your best approach.(I recommended Tip Top Shoes, and held my tongue re the ugliness of Tom's.)

• Perhaps one day you are very tired, from staying up all night feeding the less fortunate, rescuing albino alligator babies and working out the kinks on your recipe for chocolate chip cookies that always stay warm.  It's possible that you will scan a loaf of bread twice by accident.  It happens.  Let's say your customer is surprised by the total on the receipt and questions it.  Don't just surreptitiously deduct that extra charge and pretend all is right.  Just say, "Oops, looks like that loaf rang up twice.  Sorry about that." See how I am not even asking for you to say, "I rang it up twice.  I am sorry," to posses the blame? I am asking for a culpa, not even a mea culpa. That is how generous I am.

Follow these tips, cashiers, and, while I may will continue being an angry nyc chick, I will direct my anger elsewhere.