Publix Daytona Beach
“Big time” was the first phrase she used, followed by “Big spender!”
If this sounds like it might be humorous, well, you did not hear the indignant manner in which she said it.
I used to have a slight dread of sitting down at a diner and asking for a cheeseburger deluxe. I imagined that the wait staff was bored to desperation not with their jobs but with their customers, and that if one more customer ordered one more cheeseburger then they’d just have to call it quits.
“Why,” I imagined a waitress complain, “can I not get interesting orders? Why can’t a customer ask for Lithuanian veal, cooked liberally, with exotic spices and a sprinkling of rare Belgian wine? When will a customer challenge me with an order of intelligently mixed vegetables, organized by dietary needs, and then consumed in synchronicity with twice-yearly lunar phenomena? No, no, it is not to be this day. Chef, another cheeseburger, please. Medium well.”
Of course it doesn’t work like that. Most wait staff are happy to toss off a routine order for a cheeseburger, and are probably perfectly content when such a no-nonsense order comes through. I did feel somewhat conspicuous purchasing nothing but a package of celery sticks, but Sabrina’s ridicule was unexpected both in substance and in its sustainedness.
Compared to New York grocery stores I find that these Florida Publix stores massively expansive, like vast rooms in which screams disappear. The infinitely out-of-reach ceilings and casino-esque lack of timepieces and other frames of reference make a Publix feel like the airy walkways at JFK International Airport.
Such grandeur as this Publix lords over its customers would seem to render anything but a large purchase insignificant. I have similar feelings about churches, and massive cathedrals which are intended to uplift and inspire but to me they virtually humiliate, and make me feel insignificant.
This purchase of celery sticks seemed like a waste of this fine Publix, as Sabrina made certain I knew. What added insult to her fresh indignity was the one cent she handed me in change. That, to her, seemed to embody to worthlessness of my purchase, this penny serving as a token, or a reminder of what my patronage of this Publix was worth. She handed me the penny disdainfully, her index finger lingering on the coin, like she was pushing a button, mockingly seeking assurance that this precious coin was securely in my hand.
I remember similar encounters with retail clerks and store managers who were visibly unimpressed with my purchases. A small music store near Lincoln Center had a bargain bin of cheap scores, most of them priced at 25¢ and less. A friend and I browsed through the shop for quite some time, poring over the books on the full-price shelves before discovering the cheap stuff. At the cheap stuff we lingered for what seemed like an hour, commenting on what we knew about the second-hand and sometimes obscure scores sitting therein.
I do not remember what I purchased that afternoon but when I approached the cashier rang up my items he said, with dismay, “That’ll be 75¢.” Recognizing the imbalance of the situation, that I had spent considerable length of time at the store only to spend less than a dollar, I laughed a little, as did my friend, to which the cashier replied “Next time bring some money, guys.”
Thinking about it now, I do not know how genuine was the sullenness in his voice, but the store clerk (I think he was the owner) had made amiable conversation before. I believe his little music store closed long, long ago.
At a Staples on Queens Boulevard I was given the evil eye whence purchasing a Mini Composition book for 99¢, if not the single cheapest object sold at that spacious shop then certainly among the cheapest.
There are times when the refuse and rubbish that surrounds the purchase of an item exceeds the physical substance of the item itself. Some retailers are wont to lavish any paying customer, however meagre the amount of their purchase, with wastefully lengthy receipts containing advertising and customer feedback information, not to mention the colorful, fabulously wasteful coupons printed separately and at great expense of time and consumables. Coupons such as these are printed after the purchase is complete, and I have at times been gently stopped from leaving the store, not in any forceful way but at the behest of the cashier, who stated that these coupons were customized to my interests. What? I wanted to leave but it would have seemed rude to leave the cashier standing there with coupons printing.
In the case of the Mini Composition notebook purchased at Staples I would think that the purchased item had greater mass than the receipt, the shopping bag in which the receipt was placed, and the plastic wrap in which the notebook was packaged. But there are times when the bag, the receipt, and the other excesses lavished upon buyers by sellers seems to exceed the value and/or physical weight of the item purchased.
The imbalance of transactional costs extends most conspicuously into the realm of debit and credit card purchases, transactions in which store owners absorb a percentage of the purchase price for the convenience of allowing customers use their cards. The banks which issue the cards and who charge these fees to vendors allege that the ability to accept cards brings in more business than would otherwise be seen, a claim that I would think is hard to dispute. Banks and vendors reach loggerheads, though, over smaller purchases, in which store owners literally lose money on a transaction. It is like getting robbed. Many smaller business attempt defy this trend by announcing that credit cards can only be used for purchases above a certain amount, usually ten or fifteen dollars. This is patently illegal, and all store owners know it is illegal, but the minimum-purchase requirement for credit and debit cards persists.
When I worked at Tower Records I remember how customers would sometimes ask if we had a minimum purchase requirement for credit cards. Tower had no minimum on card purchases, and at the time this was a point of pride for the company, for it signaled that the place did so much volume and sold so much quantity that they could handily absorb losing money every few-dozen purchases. To those guys getting robbed on credit card purchases of $3 and less was a sign of their primacy over other record stores which had minimum purchase requirements.
I guess there comes a point at which getting robbed is an honor. I was robbed once, at knifepoint (the other guy might have had a gun, too, or maybe he was just happy to see me). Unlike the management at Tower Records I did not consider getting robbed a privilege. I was not robbed of any great fortune in that incident, for I have little excess wealth of which to speak. I was, however, amused when a friend diplomatically referred to the incident as a “redistribution of wealth”. It failed to put a righteously positive spin on things, but it temporarily neutralized my anxieties, briefly replacing them with the dangerously haughty self-importance of a “have” whose objects are coveted by the have-nots.
