Stupidity Works Here

March 19, 2008 by Keli.

It is a well known fact in these here parts that I live in, that a certain large, well-known, family-run grocery store rarely has more than three customers in it at any given time. Holidays may draw in about a half a dozen wide-eyed shoppers. But the store is so devoid of customers that there’s an echo if anyone speaks above a whisper. And for good reason. A majority of its employees are stupers (short for uncannily stupid persons).

Husband (H) decided he wanted to buy roast beef for sandwiches. The only place that sells the meat he prefers happens to be the very market that’s mostly inhabited by idiots. He hadn’t purchased this beef in nearly two years. Ever the optimist, H believes that time can change things. Maybe the stupers had been replaced.

If only.

H went straight to the Deli counter. A worker finished up with a customer and then immediately decided to take her break. H was fine with that. He smiled, waited patiently, until another employee appeared.

“Hi!” said cheerful H.

The employee grunted.

“May I have a pound of the roast beef, thinly sliced for sandwiches?”

The employee grunted again and removed the roast beef. He then proceeded slicing, using a shiny, new, professional meat slicing machine.

What does “thinly sliced” mean to my dear, intelligent readers? Does it mean each piece should resemble a thick New York steak? Because H said his pound of meat only had six slices in it, each the width of a thumbnail.

“Can you please give me a different pound?” H requested. “I’d really like it thinner. You know, so it breaks off in your hand. I hope you can use the ones you’ve already sliced elsewhere.”

The employee grunted once more and began slicing again. This time he sliced a whopping four slices.

H looked up in corners of the ceiling; he peered in the breadbox, and searched behind the gourmet crackers sitting at one end of the counter. He was hoping he was part of a revamped, covert Candid Camera type program. Then he asked the employee,

“Do those look thin to you?”

The employee grunted.

H paused and thought that maybe the guy couldn’t speak English. But he understood the request. Then he considered that the worker could be mentally handicapped, so he took the first group of six slices and went to the cashier.

The bill was $9.25. H gave the cashier a ten dollar bill plus a quarter. The cashier told him he’d overpaid. H said,

“I know; that’s so you can give me a dollar back.”

The cashier eyed him suspiciously and called for a manager. The manager arrived and asked, ‘What seems to be the problem, Sir?’

H explained that he paid a quarter extra so he could get a dollar back, without change.

“We don’t do that kind of thing here,” the manager said and left.

Husband paid his ten dollars and received $1.75 in return. He had somehow managed to get a dollar back. After all, this was a stuper store. H left the extra dollar and headed for the exit, certain that mass confusion would ensue over the mysterious dollar bill.

H then leaned against the front wall of the market, right next to the entrance and laughed nonstop for about eight minutes. No one noticed him.

Keep thinking.

Keli

Keli@Counterfeithumans.com

Posted in Plain Old Fashioned Stupidity | 5 Comments »