Letting Go

We are returning the cat food we purchased last week when our cat was still alive - a couple of pouches, a can, some treats that we bought to try to get her to eat when she was wasting away - but something is wrong with the registers.

The guy behind the counter stares numbly at the screen while we gather the returns on the counter, until finally he asks for and enters my phone number and then scans each piece one at a time, pausing interminably between each scan as the computer grinds away.

After a few moments of this, he takes us to another computer, and this one seems to work better, even though he has to re-enter my phone number two more times.

Finally, when we seem to be arriving at the merciful end of our transaction, he goes to print out the receipt and even that is broken, out of paper, so he steals a roll out of the register we were just at, prints it, and releases us into the humid late summer afternoon.