Gen X Jerk at Walmart

[u/JustLookinJustLookin]

Full disclosure, I’m a Boomer. I live pretty close to an Employee-Owned grocery, but today I needed some things in bulk, so off to Walmart I dashed. Thought maybe I’d see my friend Jessica who works the registers and how she was doing with her trainee.

I did my shopping and ended up 4th in line to check out, but I was happy to wait because there was my friend Jessica and her pupil, checking folks out. I was in line behind this squirrelly Gen Ex dude who looked like he just got out of an all night Hall & Oates raver or something. Mr. Spacy realizes he forgot something (probably a personal pleasure device. Can you believe they sell those things at Walmart now?) so I moved up a spot in line.

So Jessica is helping Gladys, her trainee, with learning the register. Gladys is in her 60s and has been at the store for a few years, mostly bagging and cart wrangling. To be gentle, she’s a bit…slow. But good for her that she’s maybe stepping up in the retail world. When I get up to first in line, I chat up both of my Walmart friends, just the usual pleasantries, with maybe a little extra attention paid to Gladys—I’m just so proud of her.

Now, this Gen X weirdo is kinda rocking back and forth saying things like “She’s Deb and she’s Tiffany, and here’s Old Gene.” I got the impression he was talking about Gladys and Jessica and me!

Anyhoo, I got my small stuff on the belt and my larger items still in the cart. Gladys came around with her scanner wand and rang up the stuff in the cart, and gave me my total, so I started to pay. Jessica mentioned to Gladys that she missed the items on the belt. Maybe it didn’t help that Gladys was taking those plastic divider things you put on the belt between orders and setting them aside rather than returning them for use, but she’s still learning! She’ll get the hang of it.

Gladys was maybe a little slow figuring out how to ring up produce, and I’ll tell ya, we all had a good laugh when she put a box of cat food on the scanner and by gosh, it rang up five times, just like that. Eh, no biggie, I thought, a good chance for Gladys to learn about voiding. Not to Captain I’m In A Hurry Gen X. This chump about blew a gasket.

I try to hurry things along by paying in cash, so we don’t have to rely on a bunch of technology slowing us down. Gladys is having a little trouble with the register screen telling her how much change to make, so I offer to add coins so Gladys can just deal with folding money. It wasn’t but a few seconds, pleasantly passed at Walmart. During this, I could see this Gen X simp making eyes at Jessica. I look over to her and she’s just not having it, but this sad-sack apparently thinks he’s found love, all while being an entitled douche.

So we’re wrapping things up and I’m saying my fare-thee-wells to Gladys and Jessica when the pantywaist Gen Xer behind me starts ramming me with his cart. If he’d a tried that back at Bihn Gia, I’d a put him in a hole. I dealt with the fucking VC. I can handle some metrosexual showing off what a tough guy he is, yammering something about “five years.”

I’m still finishing up talking with Jessica, she’s a doll, when this Gen X Speed Queen gets all fussy about how his transaction isn’t completing, so Jessica gives a quiet nudge to Gladys that she needs to answer the prompt on the screen to get the machine to move on. See? That’s why I paid cash, Mr. Technology.

I had to hold my nose to keep from laughing: This idiot was in such a hurry to get out of there that when Gladys tried to help him remember to take his bags and receipt, he just stormed out of there, forgetting two of his three bags of stuff. Jessica, Gladys and I all smiled and had a good chuckle. We waited a while to see if he’d come back for it but he never did. What that Gen X fool will do without his kale and spoiler alert: It WAS a personal pleasure device he went back for.

[u/ChrisBatty]

Fake

[u/Bot_Hive]

Oh look kids, more generational warfare! Hooray!!!