The cashier was wearing a trucker hat with an anime woman with a hand around her throat. The hand had a tattoo on each finger spelling L-O-V-E. He let out a big sigh.
The people ahead of us were two blond Russian women and a small child. The child was sloppily trying on every pair of sunglasses on the rack, which was threatening to topple over. Each of the women had a full cart of children’s toys and clothes. They each took a separate register when checking out, even though there were only two registers. They also seemed to litigate every item, holding each one up, unfolding them, and taking them out of the bag even after it had been scanned and folded.
Three teenagers behind us were buying a vintage teddy bear. By now, the line had snaked through the store while the Russians re-evaluated every item in their carts. A tall guy in a skullcap started yelling from the back of the line: “Young man! Young man!” The security guard grumbled incoherently, but didn’t move. The cashier asked no one in particular, “what the hell does he want?” Eventually, a different security guard walked to the back of the line to talk to him. The man said, “do you have any sneakers, size 14, in black?”