Another tale from Washington Heights, NYC (the land of no-speak-y-english):
My neighborhood in NYC is populated about 99% by varying degrees of immigrants from The Dominican Republic. I love my neighborhood, but I would be lying if I said that the folks in my neighborhood didn’t occasionally make me want to pull my hair out.
As I jumped in the shower this morning I realized I was running dangerously low on soap, shampoo, conditioner, and whatnot. I made due with what little I had left. Meaning, I popped the tops off of all the bottles and filled them part way with water as to dilute each substance to get a little extra mileage, you know the drill.
After my shower, I decided to head over to Rite-Aid and restock on shower supplies. I like going to Rite-Aid in my neighborhood because they are a national chain and therefore usually manage to hire employees who are not complete retards.
(I know this sounds counterintuitive but trust me, in my neighborhood, when compared to their privately owned contemporaries, Rite-Aid employees come off like NASA engineers).I ran around the store for about half an hour collecting all my items in my little basket. As I was laying everything on the checkout counter I noticed an Adidas box-set way up high behind the counter. It had body wash, deodorant, aftershave, and a little bottle of Adidas cologne. I had just collected nearly all Adidas products one-by-one around the store. I figured I could just get the box-set and save a little money. I ask the woman at the check-out counter, “How much is that Adidas Sports Package?”
The woman turns her back and looks up at the display case. I don’t think I ever saw her look directly at the product I wanted, but regardless, she turns around and says, “nine-nine-nine”.
Not, “nine-ninety-nine”, mind you. No. Just, “nine-nine-nine”.
I figure she means “$9.99” because all the products separately would come to around “$16.00” and that would be a reasonable savings.
“Cool! I’m going to go put all this stuff back and just get that box-set instead. I’ll be right back.”
I ran around the store and put all the items back on the shelves exactly where I got them. I got in the back of the line and waited to check-out again. I figured someone would have taken the time while I was putting everything back to get my Adidas Sports Package down from the top shelf behind the check-out counter, and it would be waiting there for me. Of course not. That would have been far too logical.
Instead, when I got back to the register the cashier looked at me like she’d never seen me before. This is particularly ridiculous because aside from the fact that I shop there all the time, there isn’t another long-haired-white-dude besides myself within fucking miles of this place. Anyway, I decided to hold back my rage because I was certain that someone would give me better reason to unload, shortly.
The cashier continued to stand there with this confused “Can I help you?” look on her face.
A special note to readers: I hate when people have confused looks on their faces when they should be crystal clear as to what is going on. Seriously, it makes me want to start throwing things just so they’ll change their expression from confused to terrified, at least. Call me petty.
I looked back at her with a look of utter disbelief and said,
“Uh, yeah. Didn’t we just go over this two minutes ago?”
>
She still looked confused. I hate that.
I then gestured wildly up to the top shelf behind the check-out counter and said uber-curtly, “Can you get than down for me so I can buy it, please?!” The woman then looked over to her male co-worker who then walked over and asked me what he could help me with.
I grit my teeth and tell the man what I want. He nods knowingly and quickly runs to the back of the store. I assume he’s retrieving a ladder or something.
So I wait, and wait.
Finally he comes back with a step ladder and asks, “Ok, what do you need again,
boss?”
Please tell me he didn’t just ask me again.
Oh. My. God.
Through my blinding rage, instead of smashing him, I somehow managed to make a joke that went directly over his head, of course.
“No man, not BOSS, ADIDAS!!!”
He gets up on his ladder and takes down an Axe Body Spray box-set and hands it down to the cashier, and she rings it up. I am now in complete and utter fucking disbelief. Fuse now burning dangerously short.
“No man! ADIDAS! ADIDAS! It’s right there! That big ass box that has “ADIDAS” written all the fuck over it! ADIDAS! Jesus!”
He looks back up at the display case still standing on his ladder and grabbed a really girly-like bath oil package. They oils were in a straw basket filled with hay or some shit.I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe he was moving the girly-like package so he could reach my package… although this didn’t really make sense because it wasn’t in the way.
But no. He handed the cashier the girly-like package and she rang it up.
I totally lost it.
“DUDE, JUST LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING SHOES, MAN!"
The idiot on the ladder looks down at his shoes, reads the emblem embroidered on the tongue and says,
“Oh! Adidas!” I wanted to kick that ladder right out from under him.
Come the fuck on, people.
*After "OK", "Coke" and "Marlboro", surely "Adidas" is pretty high up on the list of most internationally recongnized words. Fuckin' seriously, man. Damn.
"Twas the week before Christmas when all through the house, 
