Читать книгу Fly On the Walmart: Confessions of a Young Walmart Greeter - Kristin Ph.D. Mango - Страница 8

CRAZY LADY

This is the story of how I got whacked by a little old white lady in a wheelchair.

It was one of my morning shifts when I had worked the night before, and I had only been working at Walmart for a month. I was going over someone’s beautiful baby when I heard I shrill old female voice say, “Help me with one of these carts over here.”

I smiled and hurried over to the old lady who was in a red power chair. I was going to compliment her on her beautiful blue knit blanket when she barked at me to help her into a Walmart electric cart. As I attempted to get out a proper cart for her, the crazy lady continually yelled at me, telling me that I was doing the job wrong. I had no idea that there was one right way to retrieve an electric cart.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“One month,” I replied.

“Oh, well,” she said curtly, “A month here is a day…wherever.”

I wondered if she had ever worked a real job in her life.

Finally, and with her “assistance,” I got the cart out and properly situated for crazy lady, who probably inspired the saying “bat out of hell.”

I was relieved when she left only for a moment until I realized that should would definitely be coming back to retrieve her power chair that she left at my door. Unnerved, my hands and voice were shaky for several minutes afterward.

Too soon, the woman returned with two giant bags stuffed with merchandise. I found out later that all the cashiers knew her as “Three Bags.” She refused to accept her own merchandise unless it was triple bagged in the giant bags and stuffed to the very top.

Not wanting to deal with the old woman, I tried to ignore her, hoping that she would just leave the Walmart cart anywhere. “Help me get my bags,” she croaked instead. Without a word, I started moving the two giant bags to the woman’s wheelchair. All the while, the old bat yelled at me and directed me on how to properly put the bags on her wheelchair. She wanted the bags to be placed in a larger bag she had, one handle of which was already around the head rest, and the bag I hadn’t picked up she wanted placed in the bag first.

“You just do whatever you want!” she yelled.

“I’m trying to help you, ma’am,” I told her as calmly as I could.

“No, you’re not! Oh! You’re an awful, awful girl!” she cursed me. Meanwhile, I was trying to pull the other too short handle over the head rest. Despite the fact that I was young and exercised every day, I had to strain to get the handle on; the old bag had insisted on the bags being too full to handle easily at all. I was pissed that she dared treat me like that when I was working much harder than necessary for her.

All of a sudden, the old lady started whacking me repeatedly on my hand!

“I would really appreciate if you would stop hitting me, ma’am,” I said.

The woman yelled more and called me more choice words. “I hope I never see you again!” the woman said.

“The feeling is mutual, ma’am,” I replied, finally getting the handle over. I quickly turned to my station without another word. Before she left, and after I greeted several customers who had just entered, the woman screamed insults at me. I tried to ignore her; the customers stared at her, puzzled, then back at me.

To my extreme embarrassment, I started bawling, and within minutes, it seemed all my fellow employees knew the story of how Kristin Mango received a visit from Three Bags and lived to cry about it.