I’m about to use my anarchic acting skills to create a effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie. OK, no I’m not–that was just my favorite movie description from the back of the box of one of the movies that came out as part of the Criterion Collection this week.

I found it! Here’s the exact quote:

With Boudu Saved from Drowning (Boudu sauvé des eaux), legendary director Jean Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and the anarchic charms of his lead actor to create an effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie.

The sad thing is, I’d probably totally dig that movie.

Anyway, back to the bourgeoisie–yesterday was my very first day as a Sparky’s Organic Mayhem cashier. It wasn’t too bad–I got to wear a scarlet letter. That is, I had a flourescent green sign warning customers that I’m a CASHIER IN TRAINING. Plus, I got one of the registers down at the end where nobody ever goes. Thus, I had lots of time to space out because nobody came to my line!

Today they put me at the crowded end, right next to the express line and took my sign away. It was crazy. I didn’t have a minute to breathe! People kept bringing me produce without codes on it, and didn’t know what it was. I mean, if you were buying 5 random things for dinner, wouldn’t you want to know what they were? Even if I picked out some vegetable because it looked cool and was bright blue and fuzzy, I’d still want to know what it was called, at the very least so I could tell the cashier. But no, these people will grab shit and not care if it’s a yam or a sweet potato, or anything else. There are two types of produce buyer– the most common type is the type that knows exactly everything about what they’re buying. One lady bought Italian flat-leaf parsley, which looks like any other green thing when it’s in a bag full of condensation. “Is this cilantro?” I asked. She very condescendingly gave me a little lecture on how one tells the difference between parsley and cilantro.

Here’s Italian parsley:

Here’s cilantro:

Pretend you’re a harried new cashier dealing with a customer who is in a hurry. Can you tell the difference? Oy, maybe I’ll spend the weekend brushing up on the subtle nuances of leafy flavorings.
4060 = broccoli
4011 = bananas
4050 = asparagus.
Take that, bitchezz!

Oh yeah, then there’s the second type of produce consumer–the one who buys stuff and has no idea what it is. They just shrug and expect me to know it all. Grrrrrr.

I suppose people suck everywhere, though. There are many fewer sucky customers at NC, though. In fact, I rang today there, and there were only 2, and they weren’t ened that bad. There was one guy who was gruff and grunted everything. There was Mr. Sarcasm, who has to make snotty sarcastic remarks after you ask the Standard Customer Service Questions, such as “how are you?” and “did you find everything OK?” They weren’t even 1/2 as obnoxious as the average Sparky’s shopper.

Maybe people were just being nice to me today because I left my lunch in the car when I worked at Sparky’s, and when I went to bring it into NC, my formerly frozen banana cream pie had liquified and splashed all over my skirt, thus causing me to smell like bananas all day.

Last night Robin and I were playing his Star Wars Trivial Pursuit game, and for the record, I WAS KICKING HIS ASS!!!!!!!!!! I had 3 pieces of pie before he even got to take his first turn. GO, ME!!!! I will be the alpha geek!!

wir sind so leicht, dass wir fliegen… Gus at NC played this cd today where one of the songs entailed a dude repeating “wir sind so leicht, dass wir fliegen.” I’ve had that stuck in my head all evening.

We’re so light, we’re flying. (i think)

Maybe that song is about Niamh. Poor Niamh is wasting away. She’s really skinny now, although she seems energetic enough; she doesn’t act any different. I’m not sure how much longer she has left, though. Poor kitty.