If this keeps up I may have to start a blog entirely dedicated to exchanges with J at Safeway. This post may be a little TMI, but it’s too funny not to share, and I think it illustrates what a total weirdo J is. Earlier tonight the wife and I were making our usual late-night grocery run, and we were in need of some condoms. I said “maybe we should buy them another time, like when self check-out is open. I’m just cringing thinking about the terrible turn our conversation will take when J see these.”

My wife replied, “What am I, some embarrassed sixteen year old? I’m not going without because some grocery store cashier has something to say about my condoms.” You can see why I married this woman; she definitely has her priorities in order.

So as J is ringing us up, he mutters to my wife in a hushed voice “they never carry my favorite kind any more.” At this point J has already bagged our condoms and is now ringing up Luna bars.

“Luna bars?” my wife says in response to his comment.

“Noooo, the other thing,” and he points to our condoms.

“Oh,” says my wife.

“They’re called Trojans. They’re really good. They can’t keep them on the shelves here. As soon as we get them we sell out of them.”

“Uh huh,” my wife says.

“So I order them by mail!” he says with a delighted giggle. J is very clever. He continues, “they come in a big box that says TROJAN on the outside. Sooo embarrassing. And my postman drops them off right on my doorstep so all my neighbors can see what I ordered.”

I can see how that would be awkward, J. Kind of like how it’s awkward when the supermarket cashier insists on discussing his favorite kind of condoms with my wife. Just because we’re buying condoms doesn’t mean this is an invitation to discuss them. Thank goodness we’re not a couple of easily embarrassed teenagers who might, next time, choose to forgo the condoms altogether, rather than face an awkward conversation about them with a cashier.

My wife says next time we’re there she’s going to ask J to recommend a brand of tampons. He probably has thoughts about those too. Also, who is it that J is using these mail order condoms with? I can’t even imagine.

My wife and I have the following unfortunate routine: finish work around 6, pass out, wake up at 8:30 and go “WTF?! How did it get so late?!” We scramble out of bed and over to the gym for our daily work out and then hit the supermarket around 11pm to buy groceries for dinner. The most unfortunate part of this routine is the grocery store after 11pm, because there is always only one cashier, and this cashier is a complete freakshow.

To protect the freaky, I’ll call him J. J is approximately 19 years old and aspires to be Tom Cruise in Cocktail, but he looks like Napoleon Dynamite. He is interested in EVERYTHING and would love to chat with you about it, at length, while he juggles your groceries into bags with, what I am sure he consideres, dazzling flare. Every apple, jar of peanut butter and can of tomatoes must be flipped, tossed, caught and passed behind his back before it enters your shopping bag. All the while, J tells you about how he used to be a government assassin or wrestle alligators or race stock cars. By the time your celery and cereal have been both shaken and stirred you’re desperate to get the hell out of there, but J won’t stop yapping. He’s deep into a anecdote about the time he delivered triplets on a jet using nothing but a ballpoint pen and a nail file.

I have to wonder if J’s co-workers find him as annoying as I do. Every time I see his hair hovering above the check out aisle I cringe. I always hope in vain that someone, anyone, other than him is working. I’ll take the scary towny woman with the prison tats asking me “credit or debit” in that 20-packs-of-smokes-a-day-since-birth voice of hers over J any day. Sadly, prison tats has already clocked out for the night and it’s either face J or eat rice with soy sauce for dinner, an option my wife isn’t having.

Last night I was wearing a Red Menace tee as J rang me up. He cackled maniacally as if we were in on a secret joke together. “Dude, that shirt is awesome,” he said “almost as awesome as my PIMP shirt!”

“That would be hard to top,” I said politely. I mean, how do you respond to that any way?

“It’s got a Pi sign and M-P next to it? Get it?! GET IT?!” he laughs again.

“ooh I get it,” I say feinging interest. I can see my wife rolling her eyes in my periphery.

He’s prattling on about something else now, but I’ve got my eye on the door. Must make my escape. I zone out for a second plotting my exit and when my attention returns he’s saying “and that’s why I always prefer a Fisherman’s knot to a Turkshead. Know what I mean?” No, I do not know what he means at all and I want to get the fuck out of this grocery store. The line behind me is beginning to snake around the candy and tabloids and into the snack aisle. I hurriedly grab my groceries and deftly make a break for the door before J can get another word in.

This is pretty much how it goes every night. I really need to get on a normal sleep schedule.