The Hand Soap of Death
The Target Hand Soap of Death!
On a recent trip to my local Target retail store I encountered what I believe to be one of the dumbest non-retarded people I have ever seen. I am not even sure how this guy, my cashier, was able to count money back to customers he was such an moron. He reminded me of a mindless bullfrog, croaking, staring at me blankly all bug eyed and blinking excessively. A slimy little turd I secretly wished I could smash under the heel of my boot and watch his green slimy entrails splat all over the ground and stick to the sole of my shoe!
I visited the store that day to pick up a few toiletries for around the house. Bar soap, toothpaste, some hair gel and maybe a stick of deodorant were all that I required. I remember the weather being quite nice that afternoon, I had taken the day off work to wait for the termite inspector to come by so he could take a hundred bucks from me in exchange for a letter stating that I still did not have termites. I was happy to be at the very un-crowded store by myself and decided to rummage around.
If you read my past post about the hell I have endured at the local Wal-mart, then you already know I am a pretty big fan of the big Target with their red and khaki color scheme so it is never difficult for me to quickly amass an armful of junk I probably do not need while milling around the store.
I had grabbed my bar soap, toothpaste and so on along with a few other items. Amongst these other items was an enormous bottle of soft soap. My wife adores wasting money on pricey little items that smell good and look pretty. Our home is littered with little wall plug-in air fresheners, candles, dozens of bottles of lotions and yes, little cutesy bottles of hand soap. Being the clever dude I am, I figured I may save a few bucks by buying a gigantic bottle of creamy smelling hand soap and refill the old bottles of over priced Bath and Body Works soap before she could buy new ones!
Being a man’s man I naturally frown on the use of a shopping cart or hand basket and always opt instead, to rummage around uncomfortably with my arms overflowing with items, today was no exception. I made my way up to the cash register taking great care not to drop anything and was glad to finally be able to dump all the items on the conveyor belt. My cashier, a nice looking kid who I can now only assume is a complete failure and high school dropout flipped the switch and began scanning the items.
Beep, Beep, Beep… “Alright, that’ll be $13.78″ He said to me after ringing up my order. I swiped my card, entered my pin number and was handed my receipt. As I reached for my bag I discovered that all it contained was the gigantic bottle of soap and hair gel.
I looked up at my cashier confused; he started back at me blankly (stupid bullfrogs came to mind). “Oh, is all this other stuff your’s too?” He asked. I looked around in disbelief. There was no one behind me, no one in front of me, in fact there was really hardly anyone in the store at all, only other employees.
“Uh, yeah I want all that other stuff too man. So how did a jug of soap and some hair gel cost thirteen bucks?” I asked, looking down at my receipt to find that not only had the genius failed to ring up 3/4ths of the stuff I wished to buy, but also rang up one of the two items I did want twice! How was that even possible? How do you only ring up two out of some eight items a person wants to buy then ring up one of the two aforementioned items twice? And how do you miss ringing up the rest of the items when there is in fact no one behind me, beside me or even previously in front of me in line? Do not bother entertaining the idea that I may have mistakenly slipped in a separator bar in there either. No separator bars here! It is freaking impossible. It is an enigma; I still can not understand how this happened.The only solution is this kid is hopelessly addicted to huffing paint fumes and Elmer’s glue.
“Uh, uh… I don’t think I can give you a refund.” The retarded bullfrog said nervously, thumbing around the little keypad hitting different buttons praying that some magical panacea, fix everything button would present itself ending his humiliation and my glaring stare of disbelief. “Dude, don’t worry about. I’ll go to customer service.” I replied blankly, packing up the load in my arms again and dumping the items carelessly into a basket that sat on a neighboring register.
I trudged my way up to the front of the store and slung the heavy basket up onto counter, pleading my story and doing everything I could to hold back my frustration. I was not really angry, after all it was really not that big a deal. I was simply amazed at the pure senselessness of the cashier. The customer service rep began helping me out when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Sir, you have goo all over your shoe.”
I looked down to find my shoe covered in hand soap. COVERED! The customer service rep handed me an enormous roll of paper towels and I began lapping up the slippery substance. I looked in the basket to find that when I dumped all the items down in frustration I had busted the top of the cap to the giant bottle.
Swiiiishhh…. Thud! I turned around to see a Target employee take a massive fall! She slid across the floor like a tumbling ice skater! “Oh my God, it’s like an oil tanker crashed” I whispered to myself in pure shock.
A long and thick trail of almost invisible, cream colored soap trailed from where I stood to the cash register I had just left. Upon further inspection of the bottle, I realized over half of it had spilled out onto the floor! Yes, I had dumped roughly fourth of a gallon of soft soap over a smooth tile floor in an area no greater than 150 square foot. It was a disaster, a glorious mess.
Suddenly the Target walkie-talkies were abuzz with alarm. “We need all service personnel to the front of the store. CODE GREEN, CODE GREEN!” The Target employees immediately created a perimeter around the spill, hoping to prevent lawsuit hell from enveloping them. They organized with the grace of a well trained team of FEMA emergency relief workers… after Hurricane Katrina!
Meanwhile the bullfrog cashier stood at his post, starting blankly at the situation that had unfolded as a direct result of his incompetence. I whispered to the customer service rep, “I’m just gonna go get another bottle of soap, thanks for helping me out.” She almost appeared to not hear me, amazed by the massive slip and slide that had been created in the store lobby. I grabbed my items, got my new bottle of soap and snuck away embarrassed, my right shoe saturated and slippery as could be.
On my way out the Target team appeared to have the spill under control and the employee that took the tumble was up and walking around just fine. Hopefully no wallets emptied or lives ruined over the fiasco.
While most would attribute the cause of this incident to my carelessness in handling the huge bottle of soap, I choose to see things in a different light. This was the fault of the stupid paint huffing, bullfrog minded cashier. To hell with you Mr. bullfrog casheir.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
write another artical loser, im tired of this same shit every night when I am impatiently awaiting another exciting episode from you life.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Sorry dude, I’ve actually got quite a few articles wrote. It just takes me forever to get around to posting.
I’ll get on that!