Second Thoughts

Today I was in one of four Borders in New York City (compared to the twenty or so Barnes and Noble locations) to spend a gift card. I approached the counter to pay, and a woman wearing a sequined shirt stood at a cashier talking on her cell phone: it was loud, obnoxious and, as conversations by people with cellphones glued to their ears usually go, inane. So the clerk, who was an annoyed-looking early-20s hipster, tells her the total due, which she does not hear because she is fishing in a two gallon purse and has the phone pinned between ear and shoulder. He sighs, reaches under the counter and begins pushing some things around, and, unbelievably, comes out with a cardboard tube. He purses his lips at one end and announces in radio-announcer’s sarcastic enthusiasm, “YOUR TOTAL IS TWENTY-THREE DOLLARS AND EIGHTEEN CENTS.” Everyone stops and looks, and the woman looks up, flushed. She doesn't know what to say.

“I--I can’t believe you’re being rude to me,” she spurts. “I’m talking to my mother.”

The clerk fails to remove the tube from his mouth. “YOU ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A TRANSACTION. YOU SHOULD NOT BE ON YOUR CELL PHONE.”

“Are you kidding me?” the woman says indignantly.

“NO.”

A few people sort of clapped. Even the clerks laughed a bit nervously. She paid and left. Bravo.