Yesterday, we were forced to do our grocery shopping on a Saturday. During peak hours. At a Super Walmart that has some of the highest sales in the region. Holy Shoppers Batman. The trip didn't go badly though. But obviously, it's insanely busy.
We wait in an endless line to check out. No worries, one accepts the length of the line when one chooses to shop at this time. We are next in line and the cashier is in the process of ringing out the person in front of us when she looks at Sean and randomly announces, "I'm at the in between stage."
Husband: In between?
Cashier: Yeah, I'm trying to grow my hair out.
Okay, there wasn't anything weird or different about her hair, other than the fact that she had part of it in a pony tail. It didn't look bad at all. Nothing that would mean she needed to explain anything, especially since no one was looking at her hair.
However, my husband is a friendly sort of guy that likes to talk to the cashiers and any other people he comes across. Thus ensues a very small conversation about the annoyance of having one's hair at that in between stage. With my husband talking about how much he hated that part of growing his hair out back when he had long hair.
The cashier finally finishes ringing up the woman before us (who had two baskets of stuff) and starts ringing our stuff up. And it becomes very apparent that she's flirting with my husband. Not little innocent flirting, but REALLY flirting. At this point I'm standing right next to him with my hand scratching the back of his neck, so there's no chance that she can be confused as to what role I play in his life.
And the flirting continues. She starts to make comments about the kids.
Cashier to my Sean: Oh, you can tell that they're your kids.
Sean: Yeah...
Cashier: They look just like their daddy. They've got his red hair.
Sean: The two youngest are in the process of going blonder though, so the red may fade away.
Cashier: Aww...that will still be cute. They're so lucky that they got your hair instead. *looks pointedly at me*
Sean points to me: She used to have bright red hair too.
Cashier gives me a look: What did you do to it?
Me: Nothing. I had kids. My hair got darker with every child so now it's more auburn than red.
Cashier: Too bad.
Now this is funny because she was acting like my hair was the grossest thing next to a used mop head. I have long, thick hair down to my bum and I only use all natural hair products on it. I have random strangers come up to me all the time and tell me how beautiful my hair is and ask to touch it, so I didn't take offense. Just thought it made her look REALLY obvious.
And it keeps going...
My oldest daughter, in trying to convince me to let her get a soda, announces that she hasn't had anything to drink all. day. long.
Me: And whose fault is this? Whose responsibility is this?
Morgan starts smirking because she knows the answer to that question. But then our friendly Cashier speaks up.
Cashier: It's your responsibility. You're the mother.
I turn and look at her. "Except, she is almost 9 years old and is fully capable of pouring her own drink."
Cashier: Oh well, then I guess so.
Then we come to the dog food. Sean insists on loading it on to the belt. I usually just hold it up so they can gun it and half the time I don't buy the big bags anyway. After the cashier scans it, she points something out to Sean.
Cashier takes Sean's hand to show him something: For future reference, you can just pull this sticker off right here and give it to us to scan.
Sean: I did not know that. I'll keep it in mind for the next time.
Cashier looks at me: You just wanted to watch the cashiers struggle and break their poor backs, didn't you?
Me: No, I told him to just hold it up to be gunned.
Sean: Yeah, and she never buys the big bag anyway. I did.
Cashier: *still look at me* Well, now you know to use the sticker.
The rest of the transaction was by now, finished and she flirted a bit more with Sean while he paid. Then she pointedly wished him a nice evening without looking at me once.
As we were pulling out of the parking lot, we just started laughing so hard.
Me: She was totally flirting with you.
Sean: Wow, it was so bad. She just randomly broke out with that in between comment about her hair. All I could think was, "Oh well, now that I know why your hair is like that, I'm totally going to ask you out. With my wife standing RIGHT THERE, no less."
Me: Hey, I could dig that. It was the little disparaging comments she was throwing in my direction.
Sean: Like you weren't going to catch on. Like I wasn't going to catch on.
Honestly, we laughed most of the way home on that one.
But still...
I mean, a little innocent flirting on the job is one thing. Both my husband and I have been flirted with in front of each other. We laugh about it later. And honestly, my husband and I both do it as members of the service industry. Light flirting with some customers enhances the customer/service person experience from time to time. But blatent flirting complete with insulting the other person's partner? Yeah, I think that's bad service. Like Whoa, bad service. Especially since as soon as the cashier saw my husband, she stopped talking to or communicating with the woman she was ringing up before us.
Not enough to make me really angry, but I can totally see this backfiring on her. I know a lot of the women that shop there and if she did the same thing to their husband's in their presence, there would be blood on the floor.