Artwork
Interaction
“Hi,
welcome to Kroger. What can I help you with?”
“Ah
yes, I was wondering if you could help me find a specific lunch meat for my
children at school.”
“Sure
thing. What lunch meat can I help you find?”
“Ants.”
“Ants?”
“Yes…
ants.”
“Um,
sorry, sir, we don’t carry ants here.”
“Then
what does that guy have in his hands?”
The
customer pointed to the corner of the store. The employee turned his head to
see a small anteater humanoid, wearing a Kroger uniform, crouched on the floor
while it whispered to itself, its whole body twitching without rhythm.
“What
the hell is that?!”
“I
don’t know, but he’s holding a fur bowl filled with ants.”
“Are
you sure you don’t want to try any other lunch meat?”
“I
already said that I wanted ants.”
“But,
sir –“
“Don’t
‘but, sir,’ me. I want ants and I’m getting ants.”
The
cashier, aggravated, just ignored the customer and gestured to have another
customer
come to the checkout
line.
“Um, excuse me! I am still here. I am not just gonna sit
here while you ignore me. You cannot just decline service to me. There has to
be a law or something that protects me from discourteous people like you. You
know what? I’ll just call your boss, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll get you fired.
Then, we’ll see what happens from there.”
“Keep it moving, buddy!” One customer shouted from the
end of the line.
The infuriating customer was testing the cashier’s
patience. His anger saturated his peace but he knew he couldn’t explode. He had
two strikes and adding one more would mean he lost his job. So, he held in his vexation
and tried to get rid of the customer. “No need to freak out. You want ants? I’ll
get you some ants. C’mon, let’s go get you some ants.”
“Thank you. That wasn’t hard, right?”
The cashier ignored him while the two began approaching the
odd anteater humanoid. The closer the two got to the anteater, the louder it
started to hiss. The customer accidentally knocked down a hand-sanitizer bottle
that was sitting on one of the cashier’s counter and the anteater looked
directly into the eyes of him.
“Th-This guy works here, right?”
“Oh, are you scared now? I thought you wanted ants. If
you don’t want any ants, no problem. We have a wide variety of other – “
“No, no, no, I want
ants.”
The cashier approached the anteater, which began to growl
and claw the air. The anteater changed its position from crouching to looking
like it was going to pounce. When the cashier was about a foot away, the anteater
opened its mouth, foaming with saliva, and clutched the fur cup even closer to
its body. The cashier reached out to grab the cup and proceeded to talk to the
creature as if it was a dog.
“Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You are! Who wants
to give me their – “
“Are you seriously talking to it like it’s a dog?”
The cashier turned his head to reply to the customer and
when he did, the creature lunged forward onto the cashier’s face, spilling the
ants everywhere on the floor.
“The ants!” The customer screamed as he dropped to the
ground to try to gather them.
The cashier struggled to get the anteater off of his
face. The anteater used its long snout to bite in the cashier’s ears and eyes
until the cashier finally threw it off of him. The cashier looked at the
creature on the ground and noticed something off about the creature. There was
a tag sticking out of its butt and its fur felt manufactured. The cashier
thrusted his hands on the anteater’s face and pulled it off.
It was his boss.
“Gerald, what the hell are you doing?!” The cashier
screamed as he hopped back from his boss.
“See, you’re on Undercover Boss. I wanted to see how you
would react if we sent in a difficult customer. This was two see if you had
learned from your first two strikes.”
“Why didn’t you just send in a customer who had expired
coupons or something?”
“Oh, that would’ve actually been pretty good. I didn’t
think of that. Anyways, you performed well. At least better than I thought you
would have. I can’t believe you fought an anteater for a customer!’
“Well, I didn’t want to get fired.”
“I could see, Steve.”
“Sooo.”
“So, what?”
“How did I do?”
“Let’s just say you won’t be getting your third strike
today.”
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