Safety First

"Remember: anything from family planning goes into a bag. No one wants to be parading around with that sort of stuff. It's a small town. People will talk."

"Excuse me," the nearly-bald man grinned widely. "I was just looking through your store and, well, I was just wondering-"

Condoms, I thought to myself. Of course it's condoms. Condoms or a douche. Oh. Maybe condoms, a douche and some lube. That would be good. I just stocked all of that. I know exactly where it is.

"Where do you keep your condoms?"

Jackpot. Click one more on the clicker that really doesn't get clicked, usually, till the end of the day when I remember that my clicker actually means something.

"Of course," I smiled warmly, walking him down the aisle of chips and pop. "What kind were you looking for?" I asked without thinking. Really, as a cashier, it's none of my business what sort of condoms the man was buying - but you couldn't blame me for being curious, now could you?

"I need one box of extra ribbed, one box of extra thin, and two boxes of assorted flavours," he said, with no intention of lowering his voice. No shame in buying condoms, I thought, must get laid pretty often.

I bopped to the beat of whatever song was playing through our speakers. I had only been there for a few months and I already had figured out the tracklist that slowly creeped its way into my skull and had nestled in there, like a hibernating bear. Or a tumor. Two assorted, extra thins and ribbed. Oh, no. Extra ribbed.

"Helluva lot of condoms," I sort of felt my mouth moving and sound coming out, when my brain was just shouting 'SHUT UP'.

He laughed and walked back down the chip and pop aisle. "It is, but it's totally worth it." He nabbed a bag of Doritos off the shelf and tucked them under his arm, like an old, racist woman clutching her bag around a black man. "I think that's everything."

I suppressed my laughter for as long as I could. "Nice selection," I nodded at the chips. "Cool Ranch is my favourite too."

"Only intelligent people like Cool Ranch," he grinned as I rung through his purchases. Not forgetting what my overly-anal-retentive boss told me the first day of work, I quickly put the condoms into a bag.

"Oh, I don't need a bag," he smiled.

...

My brain stopped for a second. "But you're buying condoms," I spoke slowly, as though he had no idea what he was really purchasing.

"Mhmm," he chuckled. "I don't need a bag."

"Do... you have a bag of your own?" I looked him over once. He didn't seem to be carrying a cloth bag, but then again, this was the man who came in to the store to buy condoms and a bag of Doritos.

"Nope," he smiled, stacking the boxes on top of each other. "It's all good!"

"But," I said as he started to leave the store. "But people will talk."

He shrugged one shoulder and slid on his sunglasses. "Let 'em talk."