Date Tape

My discount grocery store loot: papaya, okra, potatoes, cactus, and an onion; for less than the price of a piece of gum at Whole Paycheck.  The real prize, however, was witnessing the nonplussed forty-year-old African American lady cashier get hit on by the sixty-five-year-old Eastern European guy bagger.  With the casual style of a bartender with time on his hands, he wore a big smile on his face and started in as she rang me up.

Bagger: You are beautiful, but you look ugly with that tape on your forehead.

Cashier: I need the tape, I have a headache.

Bagger: Have a shot of vodka with me.  I’m depressed too.

Cashier: I’m keeping the tape.

Bagger: I buy the vodka, you buy the chips.

By the time I left, no firm date was set, but I was pretty sure there was some off-brand liquor in their future.  I suppose the moral of the story is that a man’s willing to look past your imperfections, but you still have to bring him food; or that a piece of tape can keep away a headache, but not a lusty alcoholic.  Or maybe you're just supposed to come for the groceries and stay for the schtick.