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.