Not Everyone is Going to Like You

Once over a year ago when I was in a happening town in Connecticut,  there was a group of people hanging out on the street corner, a short distance away, that resembled drug addicts and or homeless people. I was on my way to the health food store and suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a teenage boy on a bicycle who was going very fast and very close to where I was on the sidewalk so that if I had moved just slightly, I could've been killed or maimed. Then two seconds later another teenage boy did the exact same thing. The only thing that I had to compare it to was seagulls at the beach. When you're in the vicinity of their eggs, they dive bomb you. I went into the health food store somewhat upset. The cashier, a young woman locked eyes with me like I was one of the aforementioned drug addicts. I stood in front of a random shelf before I could get myself together. Soon the manager(I had been going to that store very occasionally throughout the years probably starting when she was in grade school) was talking to me - "If you need any help..." Her spiel seemed to be meant like what I get when  I enter a chain drugstore and the cashier screams "Hello" or "Welcome" across the store to me to entice me to reconsider my obvious shoplifting agenda. I'm a middle aged woman and I've never stolen anything with the exception of a jawbreaker when I was 8 years old at the local Woolworths in the town that I grew up in on Long Island. I told the manager about the bicycle experience. She said something about the street. I said, "It was here on the sidewalk." It turned out that she had never experienced this, herself, though.  By talking to her, I humanized myself and dissuaded her that I was a thief(without alluding to that).  Maybe.

At a health food store that was going out of business over a year ago, this young woman came to where I was in the store and planted herself across from me and stared at me. I didn't know who she was but if she wanted to make me feel uncomfortable, she was winning. I thought that she might be a thief.  The store had tremendous price cuts. Almost everything was 75% off. I was in the bulk candy department, but I was too late, someone had already made off with all the organic M&M's. I found some coconut covered chocolate - not the same thing. The woman disappeared. When I went up front, she turned out to be my cashier. My bill came to: wait for it: $1.96. Even though it was way less then 20 bucks, she made me sign for it. Afterward, she ironically said, "Have a great day"! She watched me like I was going to shoplift when it wouldn't've been much of a loss to them if I had because they were practically giving everything away and then she made me sign when you're only suppose to sign when the bill is over $20. How was I suppose to have a great day after that?? I didn't say anything to her or to the owner as I passed him by when I left.

Here's another health food store story...stop me if you've heard this one before. They just didn't charge more money for things like a normal health food store but they use to out and out rip you off.  The employees were trained to do this. Once when I ordered a large shake, the woman gave me a small shake and charged me the price for a large shake. I debated with myself in my car whether to go back in and complain but the woman was older and I wanted her to keep her job. So I did nothing. I remember once when I was looking at the vitamins, a woman from up front asked me if I needed help. I said that I didn't. Then the owner asked me if I needed help. I said that I didn't need help. Then the woman from upfront asked me again if I needed help. They stole which I hadn't realized at the time, so that they projected it on to other people who didn't necessarily steal  Another time I went there and I bought two Chocolate vegan cookies, a can of soup and a can of beans, and a shake and a sandwich. The girl(I had never seen her before) up front said it was: $50. I said, "How could it be $50?"  This alerted a woman nearby and she looked over the girls shoulder into the computer. She agreed that the girl was in error but pointed out that it wasn't the girl's fault. Let's say the girl's name was "*Ramona". She said, "It's not a Ramona problem,"  She told me that sometimes the computer just adds money on. (!) She was going to get another young woman  to help with this because "she was good at this sort of thing."  The other young woman  gave me $18 in change, instead of returning it to my card. How good do you have to be to just return $18 in change. After this incident, I had realized that there had been even another incident that had happened there that I had overlooked but had stopped from transpiring. Needless to say, I never returned to that health food store again.

*Names and descriptions have been changed.