elgeeko’s blog

After a frantic 3am team programming session in a lab, we decided to call it a night. Too amped up on caffeine and ginseng to sleep, I opted to take care of some neglected errands. I filled up my car at a 24-hour gas station, picked up some household items at a 24-hour Walgreens, and then went to pick up groceries from a 24-hour Safeway.

The grocery store was mostly empty, though there was the occasional customer inspecting produce or shuffling through shelves. At 4am, I had no interest in perusing the store, so I filled up my cart quickly. Despite my hurry, I paused for a moment to inspect a bottle of salsa. Off in the distance, across the isle, I noticed an employee staring at me. I decided it best for my mission to simply ignore him. However, his prying eyes were unrelenting. I looked at him and shot him my “what the hell, man?” expression.
“Sir, we’re closed.”

“What? Aren’t you open 24 hours?”

“No, no, we closed three hours ago.”

Looking at down at my cart, full of fresh meats and produce, I exclaimed “but I have all this stuff… can someone at least check me out?”

A crowd of customers - who were in fact employees dutied with restocking - began to form around me. “Sorry, sir, we can’t even turn the machines on.”

Miffed, embarrassed, and wondering how I passed so many unquestioning employees during my spree, I looked up and said with a near-purple face, “okay, well, I’ll let you guys take care of this cart.”
…and I walked out as quickly as I could.

I now shop at Trader Joes.