There are moments in time in which the human condition cannot bear the burdens of frivolity or tradition any longer, when the crushing weight of reality is made to rest atop the weathered pillars of custom and the pillars crumble. In these brief, fleeting breaths, all of society is revealed to be a farce. The true state of reality peeks from behind the veil, unfettered and naked, stark; everything is made to feel utterly meaningless, completely pointless, as if an actor on the stage has been forcibly thrown into the audience, and yet the show continues, ignorant and apathetic in the face of this sudden change.
For Theresa, today was filled with these moments. What made this flirtation with the absurd especially unbearable was partly due to the fact that
“Hey, excuse me, are you listening to me? Theresa?” The woman snapped. She pronounced her name flatly, harshly; Theresa was supposed to roll off the tongue, smooth and silky, like a cascading wave. The way this woman said it, there was no music, no delicacy or melody. Tuh. Ree. Sa.
“Tuhreesa? Where is your manager? I want to speak to the manager this instant.”
The world was starting to come back to her now, in bits and pieces. Patchwork images of aisle after aisle of highly processed fructose corn syrup, all neatly aligned in their bright cardboard boxes; the quiet tinkering of lightbulbs on the verge of blowing out; the steady buzz of a hundred refrigerators; this was all her working life was, and would ever, amount to. The static of the machinery grew louder and louder, flowing up her nostrils and flushing out through her ears. It was deafening.
Theresa heard the words that were being said to her. She saw how their brows would compress, like a caterpillar frozen mid-inch. How particles of spit would cling to their lips as the vitriol spewed from their mouths. Their sunglasses hid their eyes from her, but she knew that they were narrowed. Like open blinds over a windowpane; except, light didn’t pour in here, there was only the cold blackness of a pupil.
The line was getting longer. People would occasionally crane their necks sideways, feigning indignation as they did so. How other people reacted told them how they should act. Some of them kept their heads down, trying to lose themselves in their handheld rabbit-holes. Others, mostly older folks, began to grow restless, egged on by commentary made by others. The other cashiers would shoot nervous glances at Theresa’s line and at Theresa, but didn’t dare to pause: the machinery, no how much it whined, no matter how much the gears scraped against one another, no matter how much the belts lurch, no matter how much the pistons would hiss and tremble, could not stop.
Theresa spoke with a voice that wasn’t her own. Her mask tickled her top lip and the heat of her breath made her mouth feel condensed and damp. She knew what to say instinctively, mechanically, even. She enunciated her words, her voice even and deliberate, an entire octave higher than it usually was. The linguistic nuances that she usually spoke with, the fullness of her tone, the measured emphasis on certain vowels and syllables, all these were washed away in a sea of white neutrality.
“Ma’am, I’m really sorry for the inconvenience, but company policy states that customers are limited to two packages of toilet per trip. I can’t ring up your third package and I’m going to have to take this back.”
“This is unbelievable, all of this over some fucking toilet paper.” Yin and Yang. Calm and chaos. Civility and barbarism.
Well, you’re the one making it a big deal, ma’am. If you had read the clearly labeled notice beforehand, I wouldn’t have to remind you. “Given the current circumstances I’m afraid we have to place limits on some of our stock to make sure that as many people as possible can get what they need.”
“But it’s like you said, I need this. I have a big family and I need to make sure that we have enough supplies, because god knows how long this will go on for.”
“I understand that, ma’am, and I sympathize with you, but other people also have families and they also need these supplies. We’re trying to make sure that as many people as possible can get what they need.” The memory of a team meeting going over company talking points and “de-escalation tactics” flashed through Theresa’s mind. She could physically feel the annoyance of the other customers in her bones. Her heart started beating faster and the all-too familiar sensation of storm clouds began to bubble and churn around her shoulders, neck, and chest.
“Well, I’m sorry to those other people, but I need to take care of my family first. Life is unfair.” The Hobbesian state of nature.
As Thucydides once observed, “the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” This quote was first attributed to him as he recounted the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between Athens and Sparta that saw the small island of Melos caught in the crossfire. Though the Melians had ancestral ties to Sparta, they chose to remain neutral; this mattered little to the Athenians, who sent a diplomatic envoy to the island in an attempt to persuade them to preemptively surrender. The Athenian negotiators bluntly stated that they had need of the island and would be taking it one way or the other; they argued that the Melian defeat was inevitable, and that there was no shame in submitting to a clearly stronger adversary, thus saving any needless bloodshed.
The Melians countered that they knew full well that their resistance was futile, but the fact remained that their honor was at stake. The principle of resistance was more important to them than any possible outcome. The Athenians threatened great calamity and destruction on the island should they needed to employ force, to which the Melians more or less responded with “you have things you have to do just as we have things we have to do.” The envoy left and the Athenian army returned in their stead, making good on their promise: their great island was sacked, their men were run through with spears, their women were raped, and what was left of their riches were plundered.
Ah, yes, what better place to debate utilitarian philosophy and the morality of the Hobbesian construct of anarchy than in the Kroger checkout aisle. Theresa’s political science lectures felt like distant memories from lives long passed. Her campus life was shattered when things were moved online and she was left to make sense of the destruction it left in its wake, all in the span of a week. The memory physically made her wince. Her storm clouds rumbled closer; they now occupied a solid chunk of her upper torso, with the greatest concentration sitting in the lower half of her throat: they extended just past the middle of her rib cage, albeit with far less saturation.
Theresa spoke again. Her personality bleed through, like a pen that had paused for just a second too long. “Ma’am, I feel you, I really do, and I know everything sucks, but we can’t allow you to check out with three packages of toilet paper. We’re running low as it is and our next shipment doesn’t come until next Tuesday.” Actually, the next shipment was coming on Saturday, but Theresa didn’t want to risk feeding an already roaring fire; it was her day off and she needed every second of it.
“Well, that sucks for you guys, but I’m not leaving until I get everything I came for. Honestly, did they teach you idiots anything about customer service? Ever heard ‘the customer is always right?’ You’re wasting the only weekend I have!” Her voice was getting louder now, with more self-righteousness and anger dripping with every syllable. Theresa internally winced at the inclusion of The Mantra, the universal bane of existence of frontline workers everywhere.
“Ma’am, I’m happy to ring you up and get you out of here, but you’re not leaving with that extra package of toilet paper.” The pen lingered and the ink bleed, a great blotch of black. Theresa reached for the extra package of toilet paper.
Her hand stung. A smart pain rippled across the breadth of her knuckles.
“Don’t you fucking touch my shit, you bitch!” The woman’s posture had changed. She was coiled forwards, like a wolf ready to lunge for the throat. Her muscles tightened and her stance was rigid, tense; Theresa stupidly thought that if the woman kept standing still, she’d be able to tip her over and shatter her into a thousand pieces, like a marble statue.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the store now. Please don’t touch me or hit me like that.”
“Fuck you.” The eff hissed out from between her top row of teeth and her bottom lip. The kuh was full bodied and meaty, ringing out like a church bell before the next syllable came tumbling out.
“Ma’am, don’t speak to me like that. Please get out of the store.” An unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Who wins?
Someone chimed in from the back. “Honestly, just let her get the toilet paper and leave, you’ve wasted enough of everyone’s time.” A general murmur of agreement. But wait, what’s this?
“No, she shouldn’t. Don’t blame the employees for doing their jobs. She should’ve read the notice and taken what she needed, just like everybody else.” Another voice rang out. Another wave of head nodding, of ‘mhmms’ and eye rolling. It was like Sunday Mass.
The woman shot a glance at the back of the line. “Excuse me, was I talking to you? Mind your fucking business.”
“Bitch, this is my fuckin’ business ‘cos you’ve made it my fuckin’ business. Yo’ dumbass has held up this line for the last ten minutes, you lil’ self-entitled brat.” Finally, the words Theresa wanted to say but couldn’t. Momentary catharsis swept over her. But like all good things, it didn’t last.
“Don’t you dare fucking talk to me like that, you bitch.”
“Suck my dick from the back, Grammaw.”
“Hmph. Typical, you people are always — ”
“Excuse you, bitch, the fuck do you mean by ‘you people?’”
Theresa stood still, mentally wringing her face with her hands. She unlocked her knees and shifted in her shoes; her legs hurt from standing all day.
“What the hell did you think I meant? You’re all nosy thugs and you’re ruining this community. Edgewater was so much more respectable until people like you started showing up, disturbing the peace.”
“Ma’am I’m telling you, you need to leave, or I’m gonna have to call the police.”
The woman from the back interjected. “That’s right, you better get the fuck outta here before I beat your lil’ racist bitch-ass, you punk-ass mothafucka.”
Theresa turned towards the woman in the back. “Ma’am, please, don’t escalate the situation.”
The woman at the register agreed. “That’s right, wait your fucking turn. I’m not done here yet. Don’t make her call the police.”
Theresa faced the woman at the register. “Ma’am, you still need to go; I’m not going to ring you up and you’re disturbing the other customers.”
“Fuck you, I’m not talking to you anymore. I’m not going anyway until I speak to a manager and get compensated for having my time wasted. This is absolutely ridiculous, I’m never coming back here again.”
“Good, bitch, none of us wanna see your dumbass here anyways.” The woman in the back yelled.
“Was I talking to you, you fucking bitch?”
The woman in the back started making way up front, but stopped when Theresa put up a hand. “Ma’am, please, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, too, if you make a scene.” Theresa turned towards the woman in front of her. She could feel her cold, self-entitled gaze from behind her sunglasses. “As for you ma’am, I’m not going to ask you again. You need to leave.”
“And I told you, you little bitch, that I’m not going anywhere until I speak with your manager. You’re getting fired, you little punk.” Venom laced her words.
“Ma’am, I am the manager, and I’m not going to let you continue to disrespect me or disturb the other customers. You need to leave now, before I call the police.” Theresa placed her hand on a cordless phone in warning.
The woman snorted in indignation. She almost seemed confused. The woman paused, pulling down her mask after waiting a beat, and coughed once, twice, three times on to Theresa and the cash register. Theresa’s hand spoke for her.
A company advert crackled over the speakers in between songs. We thank you again for your patronage, and we especially thank our essential employees during this difficult time. To learn how we’re giving back, visit Kroger dot com slash heroes for more information. The music came back on.
