Beans; a conflicted tale

I bought beans yesterday because they looked lovely and fresh. They were $13.99/kilo though! Oh well, nice bean salad I thought as I selected a handful.

But when I went to scan my purchases at the self-serve checkout machine, there was no picture on the touch screen button for the beans. It listed them on the docket but it added zero to the tally.

So over I go to the young lady waiting to assist and explained the problem. I’m afraid she was a ‘Madam Imperious’ in training. These older Superior Ladies often worked in Doctors’ Surgeries and would look down their noses at me when I presented myself at the Reception desk. I’d be dismissed to the waiting room with a judgmental sniff. But then, I was a single parent and weren’t they still the dregs of Society in the 90s? That’s when I learned in real life time what was like to live as an obvious Indigenous person. I’m not indigenous, but it was the same kind of thing - judged and dismissed by some inner prejudice of the other.

But back to the beans. This young lady had a bit of an attitude, I thought. Not rude in any obvious way but I could almost hear her thinking ‘silly old lady doesn’t know how to scan a few groceries’. She came over to the newly installed contraption, sitting there smug in its ‘I don’t need a human’ shininess. She voided the incorrect entry, then asked me, in short sharp words, ‘What are they?’

‘Beans,’ I say. I hope my astonishment didn’t show. I know someone that young couldn’t be expected to know every fruit and veg in the shop, but beans? Aren’t they a pretty common vegetable? Is the Pope a Catholic?  Is a bean green? They were ordinary old beans; not broad beans, or exotic runner beans, or those really long ones; snake beans.

‘How much are they?’ was her next question. She looks down on me with her squinty eyes (I’m sorry, they were squinty) and her very black, very fake false eyelashes. You could hang a hat on those things!

‘$13.99 a kilo’ I say.

She trots off to check. If I’ve been honest enough to tell you it didn’t scan a price, surely I wouldn’t lie about the price. Especially at $13.99/kilo. But all good, I’m glad she’s checking.

When she comes back, she flicks her all-powerful staff card at the machine’s screen. Her lovely young finger taps the screen nimbly and soon the amount is totted up.

But this old gal has spent a lifetime and then some, watching every penny and I vaguely think ‘That seems a lot’. I’ve only got about 6 items. But you know, the cost of everything has rocketed lately, so off I go with my one measly bag of groceries.

But once outside, I look at the docket. She’s charged me the whole $13.99 for a handful of beans. Maybe 150 grams worth. Did Jack have this much trouble with his beans? Oh. No. Different type of beans.  

Back inside I go and show her the docket. She looks at me imperiously (that ‘Madam Imperious’ training is coming in handy). ‘Yes, that’s right. They’re $13.99.’  She’s walking to the bean aisle. ‘See.’ She points to the beans.

‘Yes, I explain, ‘but that’s for a kilo of beans. A kilo of beans would be a whole big box of beans.’ She’s walking quickly back to the checkout and I’m tottering along beside her like a toddler keeping up with a grumpy mum.

‘A whole kilo of beans would … well, weigh a kilo. I try and explain but I don’t think she’s listening. She doesn’t reply so I’m thinking she doesn’t get it, or the penny’s dropped and she doesn’t want to admit she’s got it wrong.

At last a Supervisor came over and sorted the whole thing out. I felt for the young woman. Perhaps she was new and I didn’t want to embarrass her by being a smart alec. And she did apologise, right at the end of the encounter. It was a bit of a weak effort, and I could have executed a much better apology but then…. I’m not a Madam-Imperious-in-training.