mY CASHIER, MY ENEMY (OR: I just sexed the entire night shift at TRU)

Back in the 80's there was a comic book mini series called Secret Wars II that focused on the adventures of an extremely powerful alien named the Beyonder who came to earth to investigate the nature of desire, and to a lesser extent, humanity. The Beyonder, being from the Beyond, didn't understand humans so he took human form and walked around trying to fit in once he came to the conclusion that experience is the best teacher. But even then he never completely understood even the most basic social interactions that make up human existence on a day to day basis. So he was always the socialy inept weirdo who'd do dumb stuff like eat Coke bottles and get himself mugged and ask Spider-Man to teach him how to go to the bathroom. The Beyonder ultimately ended up frustrated because he didn't understand how to fit in. Lately shopping here in Rapid City has got me feeling the exact same way. I am become the Beyonder of customer/cashier interactions in South Dakota.

One thing that sucks about the Base Exchange here at Ellsworth is that they never put anything on clearance. So occasionally I ask Charles the cashier when they're going to put stuff on clearance. Charles knows a lot about everything they sell at the BX and he had built up such a strong rep with me ever since he showed me how to decode tire sizes and how to buy charcoal. Charles has Wikipedia like knowledge of everything in the store. Except the other day he told me that Alternators were the toys from the new Transformers movie and that made me a little crazy. But I'm mature enough to know not to fly off the handle just because someone makes an incorrect statement about toy robots, so I let it slide. Here's the conversation:

Me: So when are those toys going on clearance?
CHarles: Which ones?
Me: The Transformers. The ones that cost $20. Um, I think they're called 'Alter-nators".
Charles: Oh, the ones from the new movie.
Me: No, the ones that look like real cars and they're all detailed.
Charles: Yeah, those are the ones from the new movie coming out.
Me: No they're not.
Charles: Yes, they are.
Me: Okay. [But really I was thinking, WTF CHARLES? ALTERNATORS NOT MOVIE TOYS!!!]

I guess you can't know everything useful. I should open a small kiosk at the BX like Lucy had in the Charlie Brown comics, except I would answer customer questions about Transformers. I guess that would blow my cover as supercool awesome normal adult guy. It's a weird balance I have to keep, pretending to be a casual customer while not letting on that there's a room in my house full of toy robots or that I am wearing underwear with Autobot insignias I ironed on.

The other day at GameStop I got got into an argument with the employee guy who was trying to help me decide whether to buy Need for Speed Carbon or Ridge Racer 7 for my Playstations 3. I guess it was my fault because he mentioned he had a Wii and I called the Wii a "Gamecube with cheese". So it quickly devolved into a PS3 vs Wii debate, which is pretty pointless because I respect anyone's decision to buy an underpowered game system whose strongest draw is a bowling game. He told me the Wii got his mom and grandma gaming, and I told him good for them but when I'm looking to buy a game system I'm not giving a crap if my mom doesn't want to play Ninja Gaiden Sigma. All my family lives about 5,000 miles away anyways and they think bowling is stupid but I told him if they visit I'll ask my grandma if she wants to go to his house to play videogames. I told him the difference between the Wii and PS3 is the difference between wanking to pics of the Baroness and being in a five way with her, He-Man, Optimus Prime and Jayce from Wheeled Warriors, who pees on her. I think he's saving his money.

Sufficiently worked up, I went to Toys R Us to buy Need for Speed Carbon (because even new games are sold already opened at GameStop and I hate that) and I brought my son. I carried him in my arms, holding him close against my chest and this caused my shirt to crawl up my belly, exposing the top edge of my underwear and much of my pubic hairs. So I gave all the TRU employee girls a free show. My wife says showing that much skin is equivalent to having sex with everyone that saw me, so by her definition I scored on the entire night shift of teh Rapid City Toys R Us. It was pretty embarrassing but what are the chances they were looking at my underwear instead of my baby. Babies are like black holes of attention. Next time I go to TRU I'll dress him up like a robot from Hot Topic and I will wear a shirt that says "I AM FROM BEYOND" and I'm not wearing any pants. I swear nobody will notice me or if they do I'll probably end up as a footnote in some cashier's website about weird customers.