Ma'am...I am a CASHIER, not a dr.

Ma'am...I am a CASHIER, not a dr.

So as some of you may or may not know, I work at a classy lil' joint called *The Buck Stump, where everything is a dollar. I also live in Florida.

So I'm ringing customers up, it's busy as hell. There's about 7 people in my line and of course I am the only one, other than the assistant manager/manager on duty. Usually I can get a line in and out fast. Nobody wants to be in line anyway, I hate it, you hate it, I get it. I'll do my best to be as quick as possible.

This lady comes along, wearing an orange polo shirt with, "Cafeteria Staff," embroidered on the chest. She drops her items on the conveyor belt and I am ringing it up. It's anti-itch cream. No big. She then says: "Can I ask you something?"

I thought this was going to be about a product. Our store hours. Maybe the price of something. Sometimes they ask if we're hiring. So as the disgustingly chipper person I am I say, "Sure!"

This woman then turns around, in line, with customers behind her, WATCHING her, takes the edge of her shirt and then HIKES it up around her neck. I am not lying. Full on bra on display (thank god all tiddies in, no party tit flopped out or anything BUT STILL) and goes: "I got something that's biting and itching me. You know what it could be?"

Now, a normal person would probably just stare like a deer in headlights. Who wants to be normal? Part of my brain literally shut down because: Hello, lady you are FLASHING THE ENTIRE STORE and so that other part of your brain--the one that takes over sometimes when you panic and see a train wreck and you run in and save a bunch of people while shits on fire and you don't even notice--took over.

"Got pets?" That part of me I had no control blurted.
"No," lady says, still standing there, back to me, shirt hiked.
"Have a new roomate?" I ask out of Panic Brain's growing suspicions.
"Yeah!" She said, FINALLY lowering her shirt and turning around to face me. "Had one at least, stayed with me a week or two. They're moving out."
[Suspicion Increases] "You notice that you get these bites at night, while asleep? And sometimes they itch and bother you or you feel it so much at night you wake up from it?"
"Yeah!"
"Bedbugs," I dead panned. And felt my skin CRAWL because I had to touch the itch cream she just put down on the conveyor belt.

I am refusing to make eye contact with the other customers right now because I don't want my face to give away the horror I am feeling and they must be, watching this go on.

"DAMN," she says. "Thanks!"
Pays me and walks away.

The next customer walks up and I make them wait while I pump out enough hand sanitizer to set my cuticles on fire and rub vigorously, trying not to re-inact any dramatic shower scrubbing scenes.

The next lady in line had no problem with it, as she too was grabbing the hand sanitizer on my register to scrub herself.

Thinking about it now, my skin is still trying to crawl off to find a container of bleach. I think of this moment often, whispering, "What the ever loving fuck," to myself under my breath whenever I recall this.