interesting conversation at checkout

[boa]

I was doing my shopping and my father's. A lady only had two items behind me so I said you go first as I had more items. After she had finished she said it is good to see your cat eats well. (I was buying food for my cat and chocolate for my father who is 89 and fitter than me.) I stated that he is 89 and if he wants to eat a lot of chocolate and drink wine so be it. She was probably about 60 years old. If it was a bloke would have ended differently. I look for sales on chocolate as it is his money I am spending so it was a purchase of about 30 items. That will last a while. Her items were two small tubs of yougout. Two purchases my money and his.

[korg20000bc]

I was doing my shopping and my father's. A lady only had two items behind me so I said you go first as I had more items. After she had finished she said it is good to see your cat eats well. (I was buying food for my cat and chocolate for my father who is 89 and fitter than me.) I stated that he is 89 and if he wants to eat a lot of chocolate and drink wine so be it. She was probably about 60 years old. If it was a bloke would have ended differently. I look for sales on chocolate as it is his money I am spending so it was a purchase of about 30 items. That will last a while. Her items were two small tubs of yougout. Two purchases my money and his.

I don't get it.

[mikehzz]

I don't get it.

It must be a very interesting conversation because I've read it 30 times now. I like chocolate flavoured puzzles and I think I've worked it out. Yoghurt lady sarcastically comments that the cat eats well in comparison to 89 year old dad who apparently eats a strict chocolatarian diet supplemented with wine. The correct response to her should have been that the cat food was for dad (cheap pensioner protein), and the chocolate was for the cat because he was trying to bump the cat off (chocolate is poisonous to cats). Either that or she was trying to crack on?

[Homestar]

That would **** me off mightily after letting her move through the checkout first. I would have said 'I don't have a cat'

[simonmelb]

She's just trying to be friendly. People still do that. Lighten up!

[boa]

Being friendly would have been to say thank you. Commenting on my purchase was none of her business. When supermarkets have those deals for kids cards etc I always take them and give them to another shopper with kids. I just thought she was rude and the comments were unexpected. Not a world problem just surprised that she needs to comment, it has nothing to do with her as to what I buy.

[Homestar]

That could well be the case, but when something is written down it loses context, so it could have been nice, it could have been nasty, no way of telling from the OP IMO.

[DiscoMick]

My BIL who is a vet says pet food is often more nutritious than much of the food humans eat. Large parts of the average supermarket could be bombed and shoppers would be better off.
He reckons the average human could live quite comfortably and healthily on a diet of kibble and water.
Actually, this could be the answer for remote area travel - a bag of kibble and lots of water.
I know some former rebel soldiers who used to live on a diet of bags of rice supplemented by whatever they could kill.

[Xtreme]

Another interesting conversation at the checkout recently -

I was checking out at the local supermarket with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those dividers that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the divider, looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it.

Not finding the bar code, she said to me, 'Do you know how much this is?'

I said to her 'I've changed my mind; I don't think I'll buy that today.'

She said 'OK,' and I paid her for the things and left.

She had no clue to what had just happened.

(But the lady behind me had a big smirk on her face as I left)

[vnx205]

I am trying to imagine how dull life must be in Werribee to justify describing as "interesting", a conversation as unremarkable as the one described in the original post.

However since all I have to go on is a verbatim report of the conversation, I suppose there may have been something about the tone of voice or the body language that gave the words a significance that was not apparent when the words were transcribed to the forum.

Perhaps there was something of the huskiness of Marlene Deitrich's voice in her tone or a "come hither" look that added a level of interest not obvious in the written word.

In any case, while I struggled to find anything of interest in her comment, it seemed to me that it was her way of acknowledging your generous gesture. Rather than than just accepting your offer and ignoring you as some people might have done or mumbling an insincere "Thank you" without even looking you in the eye, she decided to go out of her way to show her gratitude.

It seemed to me that she was trying to demonstrate how much she appreciated your kind gesture by actually showing some interest in you as a thoughtful human being. Since she probably knew very little about you, rather than rely on some generic comment about the weather, she chose to make a lighthearted comment about the contents of your shopping trolley.

However as I wasn't there, all of this is mere speculation on my part.