Mrs. Reaper, I presume?

I like my job. The people I work with are funny, and I'm only there part-time, so the whole thing is fairly relaxed. I'm fairly sure I give off a laid-back and jolly sort of vibe. We're selling craft supplies, for cryin' out loud. But I guess you never know.

An extremely thin woman came through my checkout line today. That was the first thing I noticed --that she was painfully, scary, just-a-bit-of-pale-skin-stretched-over-bones, this-is-anorexia-or-cocaine-or-something, Stick Thin. And she was sort of a here-but-not-here personality. Hey, it's arts and crafts. We do eccentric.

She put down a melting pot for chocolate and three small cardboard storage boxes. I scanned and bagged everything, and told her the total -- $29 and change. She stared at me and uttered a cold, flat, "No."

"I'm sorry?"

"I have a coupon."

"Oh, okay. No problem."

Her skeletal fingers slowly rummaged through her wallet. After several false alarms, the coupon was finally located and handed over.

Icicle Voice continued, "I told you I had one. I wrote 'chocolate pot' at the top."

"Okay."

Scanned the coupon, which brought the total down to $20.49, or something. I announced the adjusted total, and again we experienced The Search -- this time for cash. It was like watching two spiders crawl over the wallet. Three $5's and a $1 were produced, and finally another $5 came out of hiding. I counted back the change and was rolling into my patented "Here's a coupon for next week; have a nice evening" rap, when Madame Skeletor stopped me cold.

"You look like you can barely stand to be here. Clearly you hate it. You should find a different job."

I was so wrapped up in mentally replaying the assessment that I didn't even notice she'd walked out without her shopping bags. I set them aside, picked up some other work, and played a few more quiet rounds of Sociopath-or-Pharmaceutical-Side-Effect? She returned a few minutes later -- shot me the evil eye, collected the bags, and was back out the door.

Mom always told me, "It takes all kinds." Hopefully, there's only one of that variety.