When Joe and I went on vacation with our friends in the mountains of northern Georgia a few weeks ago, we knew exactly what we were getting into. We were going to be #teammask people in a part of the country that didn’t think masks were important. We had “Plan B” all read if we ever felt uncomfortable. Fortunately, we adapted to the situations that we encountered and had no major problems.
However, we did have one minor one.
There was a store that one of our friends really wanted to go into and it seemed like the type of place that I would really like, too. It was early Sunday evening and most tourists had already left for the weekend, so there weren’t many people inside. The signs on the door also specified social distancing, mask use, plexiglass barriers at the cash registers and even patrons having to wear plastic disposable gloves during transactions, so I felt relatively safe.
The store was a fun place to wander through and I found a few things I wanted to buy.
If we’re together, Joe usually is the one who pays for stuff. He knows I have no patience for the whole “credit card thing” and usually gives me just one card that’ll be the most beneficial for most purchases (right now it’s a Barclay Arrival+ MasterCard. Something about 2 points per dollar? Whatever, don’t care, sorry not sorry LOL!). He, on the other hand, has cards at the ready, depending on if the purchase is for gas, groceries, small businesses or whatever.
There were 2 cashiers. Both had their masks down around their chins but as Joe approached one, she put it up the way it belonged. The plexiglass between the two of them was also in a good place to keep both of them safer.
As Joe was getting rung out, the other cashier came over to help by holding the bag that our (gloved) cashier was putting the contents into. However, cashier #2 was still wearing her mask below her chin, was about two feet from Joe, and was beyond the plexiglass.
I need to interrupt myself at this point by mentioning that I’m at the point in my life where, much like Cathay Pacific Airlines, I pretty much have no “effs” to give. If a situation is bothering me that much, I will say something about it. I’ll try to be polite about the whole thing, but it’s usually with varying degrees of success (I’m still working on that life skill called “tact”).
Back to our story…
When it was time to pay, Joe tried to hand our cashier his credit card. She, in turn, asked him to put on one of the plastic disposable gloves they had in a box on the counter, for safety.
As you’ve probably figured out by now, I am ALL about safety in the age of COVID-19. But something else needed to be done to make the transaction 100% safe and I knew exactly what it was. So I said, “If he has to put a glove on for safety, then can she (cashier #2) put her mask on the right way?”
I caught the look cashier #2 gave me and it was not a good one. So I tried to explain myself.
Me: Well, if he has to use some sort of protection like a glove, so should everybody else.
Maskless cashier: I’m not touching your items.
Me: But you’re breathing with your mask down by your chin. And your store has a sign out front that says everyone should wear a mask. That does mean they should wear one the right way, right?
Another icy stare of death.
At this point, she walked away and went back to her till, lips pursed, eyebrows furrowed. She was FURIOUS that I dare suggest she wear her mask the right way.
As we left, her parting shot was, “You know, next time you can place your orders online and just do outside pickup. Then you don’t even have to come inside.”
I told her “thank-you” and “Bless your heart,” and we left.
We had to pick something up from the same store the next day. I stayed in the car. 😉
Featured Image: Pixabay
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 15,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
9 comments
@ Sharon — My Georgia Tech professor once told me…well, you know the rest.
I do, but I still don’t agree with it. It has nothing to do with poor intelligence; just bad judgement and a lack of interest in wanting to potentially protect their fellow man.
I have some pretty uncharitable thoughts about cashier #2. Then again, it’s not like you need to have something as complicated as a first grade education to know how to wear a mask correctly yet I’m constantly avoiding non-maskers or people who can’t manage the complexities of correct mask wearing in the grocery store. It gets wearisome, no pun intended. I’m glad you went with the Southern “Bless Your Heart” ploy as that tends to confuse people. I suppose that makes me a bad person but I can live with that in this context.
What a disappointing experience.
If I am asked to wear a mask… I expect all employees to wear one properly, too. And asking customers to wear gloves to pay with a credit card is absurd. I doubt I need anything that store sells enough to actually complete a purchase after those events nor would I come back the next day for more.
My two cents: the employee was wrong, you were right, and you were childish. And now you’re proud of the whole thing.
I won’t disagree – I even said in the post that I’m still learning the art of tact.
So is there something wrong with Sharon being happy about being in the right and having a little snark that perhaps brought home the safety concept to the cashier? I think not.
I went to Punta Mita and rented a car from National at PVR. The girl at the counter had her nose uncovered and was explaining how many safety and higiene precautions they were taking, like how they wouldn’t let her ride public transportation amongst others. I asked her: wouldn’t you be safer if your mask covered your nose too?
But it was fine. She was reasonable and hadn’t realized her masked had lowered while she was alone at the stand.
Yeah. Some masks slip; I totally get that. The mask on the woman in my post most definitely hadn’t; it was intentional.