The Bagger at the Grocery Store Asked Me What I Wanted to Be When I Grow Up

I've been avoiding that question for decades and boom... HERE IT IS AGAIN!

oh no (Canva)

I almost always use the self-checkout line at the grocery store these days and now I remember why.

Sure, it’s slow and inconvenient. You have to cram your groceries into the tiny little landing area after you scan them. If you bring reusable bags, there’s at least a 75% chance one bag will topple over, spilling groceries onto the linoleum floor. You definitely will scan one item twice and have to give that little sheepish wave to the attendant as if to say, “Help, please… I’m an idiot and can’t be trusted to scan groceries properly.” And if you’re buying alcohol? Forget it. Might as well leave the country and start a new life.

On the plus side, the machine never asks you about your alcohol consumption plans or your career aspirations.

I’ll take the machine.

It was a last-second decision when I slid my cart into the traditional check-out line. The line was empty, and because I was shopping at Publix (instead of Walmart) where the self-check areas are even more cramped, I decided I could save a few seconds by going the old-school route. What was the harm?

Lol. It was one of the worst decisions of my life.

I knew things were going to turn excruciating when the bagger, an average-looking guy probably in his early twenties, called down to me while I was loading two six packs of Shock Top onto the conveyor belt (they were BOGO… I had to get two!).

“Those beers are for the drive home, right?”

I looked over my shoulder in his direction and gave a smile to indicate “nice one.” Meanwhile, I was thinking, “Oh god, the bagger is going to workshop his stand-up routine, isn’t he?”

I continued piling groceries containing various flavors of gluten onto the belt hoping that fun time was over.

It wasn’t.

“Sir,” the bagger continued in a serious tone. “I’m going to need you to confirm that those beers are not for the drive home.”

I considered making a run for it at this point. I’ve heard Mexico is nice this time of year.

Instead, I gathered myself and replied, with as much jovialness as I could muster on short notice (none), “Definitely not!”

The teen girl who was on the register said to the bagger, “What were you going to do if he didn’t confirm?”

I would like to tell you what he said to that, but I had completely dissociated at this point. I was in Cancun. In a self-checkout line at the grocery store.

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

The bagger’s voice brought me back. What? I hated that question as a kid and as a teen and as a young adult. Since I’m in my forties now, I never expected to hear it again. Particularly not at Publix while buying beer in the middle of a weekday. I feel like that was a reasonable expectation.

Nothing was reasonable in this check-out line.

“Umm, I’ll figure that out one day!”

That’s not bad, right? Kind of funny? Self-effacing? Not too cringe?

Why do I care? I don’t know. Even though this was objectively the dumbest social interaction I’d ever experienced, I wanted the guy to like me. Whatever part I was supposed to be playing, I wanted to nail it. I wanted to win an Oscar for Best Improv Performance in a Grocery Store. It’s pathological. I have a problem.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Boom. I turned the tables on him. I was proud of myself for tossing the ball back but then I panicked.

Was that a rude thing to say? What if he wants to be a grocery bagger his entire life and he thinks I’m subtly disparaging his life choices? What if he hates me now?

The last thing I wanted to do was hurt someone’s feelings in a farcical conversation I didn’t ask to participate in in the first place. Again, I have a problem. Probably more than one.

“I want to be retired,” the bagger said, unfazed. “Actually, I already am. I just bag groceries for the love of it.”

I smiled again. Nice one. Maybe laughed. I don’t know. I was pretty deep inside my own head at this point.

Mercifully, the cashier handed me the receipt and I raced to the exit. I took a few deep breaths when I reached the car to gather myself. Sprinting with a cart full of groceries tests your cardio. My apologies to the little old lady I almost side-swiped in the crosswalk.

I placed the groceries in the car and briefly toyed with the idea of screwing the cap off a Shock Top just to see what would happen. Would the bagger teleport into my backseat? “Sir, but you confirmed!”

I thought better of it. I couldn’t risk the illegality, or more importantly, the possibility of having to verbally joust with the bagger again. I was exhausted.

I drove home. It was 1 p.m. Luckily I had a good hour until the kids started getting home from school. And exactly twelve Shock Tops.

I had fulfilled my promise to bag man. All bets were off.

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Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.

Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey

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