L.R. Burt

I’m all environmental, right? I mean, I’m not as green as I could be — I use pesticides and I don’t buy the green cleaning products simply because they cost more than I can afford to put in my grocery budget. But I do recycle everything I can, and I recently purchased five canvass grocery bags from Wal Mart to eliminate our consumption of those plastic grocery sacks that are so terrible for the environment. When I’m shopping any place without my bags and I can get away without taking my purchases home in a bag, I say no thanks, and generally the cashier is perfectly cool with this.

Not at Kohls!

I went in this morning to get my mom a belated birthday gift (her birthday was last Thursday, while Mr. Burt and I were on vacation) and quickly found a very cute bracelet and earrings set on sale. I took them to the jewelry cash register, which was manned by a Sullen Indian Woman who eyed me for a moment from beneath a contemptuously arched eyebrow before saying, “What I do for you?”

Well, seeing as I was standing there at the counter, pushing earrings and a set of bracelets toward her, you’d think it would be pretty obvious I wanted to buy them, but figuring it wouldn’t help the Sullen Indian Woman’s mood to be as snarky as her attitude merited, I politely told her I’d like to pay for them.

The Sullen Indian Woman sort of sniffed at me as I pushed the bangles further across the counter toward her. When she didn’t make a move for them, I picked them up and held them out to her. You’d have thought I was handing her something disgusting, she took them so gingerly in her fingers, nose crinkling as she turned around to the cash register to ring them up.

As the Sullen Indian woman silently rang up the bracelets and earrings, I asked for a gift box and gift receipt, please, to which she said nothing, so I wasn’t sure if she heard me until she reached under the cash wrap and took out a box. She placed the jewelry inside and while the receipts printed, reached for a plastic bag.

“It’s okay,” I told her, protectiveness toward the environment swelling up in me at the sound of crinkling plastic, “if I’ve got the box and the receipt, I don’t need a bag.”

Again, the Sullen Indian Woman didn’t acknowledge I’d spoken, so again I was left to wonder whether she’d heard me, and if I ought to repeat myself. The next thing I knew, she’d turned back around with my gift box and receipts and was struggling to open the plastic sack.

“It’s okay,” I repeated. “I don’t need the bag.”

Black eyes fixed beadily on me, the Sullen Indian Woman shook the bag and dropped the box inside. “No. I think you take bag.”

This was followed by some sort of muttered explanation about me leaving the store, which I really didn’t hear because I was too stunned by the sharply uttered, “No. I think you take bag,” resonating in my mind as I stood there with my mouth open half in a bemused smile, half in an expression of “Ohmygosh, did she really just say ‘No. I think you take bag’?!” You just couldn’t argue with a voice like that, and the next thing I knew, I was walking submissively out of Kohls with a plastic bag in my hand that was much too large for the small, flat square gift box within.

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cloth shopping bags, Going Green, rude people