When It's Your Time to Go, It's Your Time to Go

I make friends with a lot of the customers. Yes, there are some people I actually like out there. Sometimes a lot of time goes by where we don't see many of them. The only way I know what may have happened to some customers is to check the obituaries.

I look through the obituaries in the newspaper every time I work. About 5 times out of the year, I find a customer in there. Someone who I usually just saw the day before in my store.

It's kind of creepy seeing their picture in there when you had no idea anything was wrong. And usually nothing was wrong, most of the time they died suddenly.

I've seen a young guy in there that I was just hassling the other day about expired coupons...he committed suicide.

I've seen a guy that called me the wrong name for years...I'm just too polite to correct some people.

I've even seen a lady in there who's mother had died a month before.....she missed her mother so much her own health had started to deteriorate.

It's sad when customers pass away. Sometimes I show up at the funeral or wake and their family members are always surprised to see a person like me; someone who only saw them briefly every day, but otherwise knew nothing about them.

What's That Smell? Oh, It's You.

What do you think my most valued item in the store is?

You might have guessed hand sanitizer, but no. While it is immensely valuable and useful, having things on my hands doesn't bother me as much as smelling stuff.

The item I can't live without? The air freshener can.

Over the years I've learned not to smell things or people. When I was a smoker, I lost my sense of smell so I didn't have to worry about anything. Once I quit smoking though, it was like a whole world of evil opened up onto my nostrils.

I can't believe some people leave their house smelling like they do. I smell everything from cigarettes, body odor, marijuana, body odor, perfume, stale beer, soap and body odor.

While I'm used to some of these smells, there are some that I try to run from as far as I can. Those being? The ones I can't identify.

We had a customer come in one time that was really weird. He was a tall guy and had the longest beard. Never said a word to us, but whenever he came in, I swear people passed out from the smell that came from him.

I've never smelled death before, but I think if I had to describe it, it was him. It was so strong that it instantly made me and others start gagging. I can't even explain it. It was like he killed an animal, shit on it, then killed another animal and pissed on it, then rubbed that whole concoction all over his body. And made sure not to shower for a month to let the flavors marinate.

This guy would come in once a week, and whenever we saw him outside we'd all start arguing about who was going to get stuck ringing him up.

The bad part; whenever he came into the store, other customers didn't realize it was him that smelled, so I'd watch as they scrunched up their nose, while assuming that it was probably me that smelled!

The last time I saw him, my co-worker got stuck ringing him up. He had some goopy food stuck in his beard that day, along with the smell. After he left, one of the customers started gagging because the smell from this guy usually stuck around for a few minutes. So my coworker went outside, and politely told the guy that he couldn't come in the store anymore because customers were complaining about him.

We never saw him again. My sense of smell wasn't that upset about it.

But my point? I'd like to kiss the person that invented air freshener in a can. Thank you, on behalf of all cashiers everywhere. It's something I use on a daily basis. After the smelly customers leave the store, of course.