Shocking as it may sound, I make a solid effort to not be an anchor on society when I’m out and about.
Today, for instance, I picked up some five-gallon bottles of water from Kroger, and knowing full well that they aren’t U-Scannable, I went to a regular line.
First line: soccer mom with enough cereal and Lunchables to fill up a minivan. Next line: an unattended cart where someone forgot something. Last line: an older guy with a watermelon.
Naturally, I picked the last line. The guy was buying a watermelon. Worst case, the guy wants to whip out a coin purse and start counting, right?
This motherfucker actually pulled out a check. Instinctively annoyed, I started to think that maybe he just doesn’t go out much and usually pays in cash. Or maybe he has a strange accounting system going where food is paid for with checks. In any case, he certainly has a check card so the cashier doesn’t have to do a background check, right? Right?
Of course not. And in the midst of contemplating the value of asking someone “Is this your phone number?” (like a criminal is going to say “oh, no, that’s totally bogus”) I realized that the man wasn’t someone who was a financial luddite. He was a hostile prick. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the beauty of it: how can you bitch at someone legitimately paying for something?
