Dear Boo and Bubble,
Nowadays when I do my Christmas
shopping, standing in check-out lines resembling slow moving snakes with carts
filled to the brim, I am overwhelmed by the constant annoyance of that “beep,
beep, beep” of the barcode scanning machines. If I had to be a modern
cashier, I’d go stark raving crazy. When the noise wouldn’t send me over
the edge, the act of waving the magic red laser across the code of each article
hoping to trigger the “beep” would.
Add to that the inevitability of
the scanner not registering a price through five swipes which requires the
cashier having to manually enter the numbers.
Or perhaps, the opposite, where the laser decides to become super
sensitive, adding an item twice, causing a total meltdown of the check-out line
and precipitating a call to a manager in some far away place like Oz to come void
the sale. You get my drift. I surely don’t want the job.
It hasn’t always been this
way. As a matter of fact, years ago when I was a little girl, I truly
wanted to be a cashier at a grocery store. I loved it when great
grandmother Mary would take me grocery shopping with her. Plopping me
into the seat of the cart, she roamed the aisles carefully checking off the
things on her list while looking for bargains along the way. I never
resisted the cart seat because it gave me such a good vantage point for seeing
things - especially when it came time to check out.
As she wheeled the cart into the
check-out lane, my eyes would grow wide with anticipation. There, sitting
next to the cashier, was the amazing, stately register with its buttons that,
when touched, miraculously caused numbers to appear in the window at the
top. The cashier picked up every can, bottle, box and package to read the
price. “Cha-ching,” “cha-ching,” “cha-ching.” As her fingers deftly
pressed the buttons, somewhere deep inside of the register, a total was
building.
“Is that all?” the cashier
asked.
“Yes, thank you,” my mother replied.
The cashier hit the “total” button
revealing the final numbers in the window, the tender box flew open to a chorus
of bells, mother paid and the transaction ended. To me, it was
wondrous. Yes, I thought that the best thing a person could ever be was a
cashier.
At this same time, great granddaddy
Schaefer happened to have an interest in a small business in downtown
Greenville called the Tire Store. Of course, their main concern was selling
and fitting tires but, they also had a hardware department and a toy
department. Close to Thanksgiving each year, Dad took your great uncle Bryant
and me (great uncle Gene wasn’t born yet) to the Tire Store to peruse the
year’s selection of toys and pick something out that we wanted to ask Santa to
bring. I loved going to the Tire Store and can still visualize its worn
wooden floors and smell the musty air laden with the odor from the rubber of
tires.
When I was five, we made the annual
trek to select our Santa gifts. It was an extraordinary selection that
year of baby dolls with strollers and princess dolls with lovely tulle dresses
capped with silvery crowns sitting on ringlets of hair. There were play
ovens, china sets, and blackboards with chalk trays. I walked wide-eyed
along the shelves trying to make a choice. Suddenly, I spotted it.
Sitting on the top shelf, a little out of my reach, like it was the most
precious prize in the whole world, was a toy cash register. I
couldn’t believe my own eyes. How was it possible that somebody could
have their very own register?
I raced down the aisle to find my
Dad who was talking with the manager of the store in his office off of the tire
department.
“I’ve found it!” I yelled
excitedly. “I’ve found exactly what I want Santa to bring me!”
Dad excused himself and came back
with me to see what it was that had so animated me. I’m sure he was
expecting the biggest, brightest (and probably most expensive) doll in the
place. I grabbed his hand as we approached the register, extending my arm
up and pointing to it while jumping up and down.
“There it is -- the cash
register. That’s what I want.”
Dad started laughing. “Are
you sure?”
“Yes,” I said adamantly.
“That’s it? You don’t want
one of these beautiful dolls? Or maybe this dollhouse?”
I thought it was pretty strange
that Dad didn’t seem to be as excited about my choice as I was.
“No. I’ve ALWAYS wanted a
cash register.”
“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll
make sure that Santa knows you want a cash register for Christmas.”
I thought the time between then and
Christmas would NEVER end. Every time mother and I went to the grocery
store, my stomach churned with anticipation watching the cashier punch the keys.
Before long, if Santa had received the message and I was on the “nice” list,
I’d be ringing up items on my very own register.
Finally, December 24 arrived.
We were living in a two-bedroom apartment in a complex called University
Ridge. There was a large living room, dining room, kitchen and two
bedrooms. Mother decorated the apartment festively with the focal point
being a beautiful tree placed in the middle of the picture window of the living
room covered in multi-colored lights, balls and silvery shimmering
icicles. Brightly wrapped presents circled all around the base and
spilled out onto the living room floor. We taped our stockings to the
window as we had no fireplace with a mantel.
Bryant and I shared bunk beds in
one of the bedrooms. Once mother and dad tucked us in, it took a while to
settle down because we kept giggling. Finally, we drifted off as sleep
overcame us.
I’ll never forget that next morning
when mother and dad waked us up and made us stay in the room while dad went
into the living room on the pretense of “seeing if Santa has come.” Bryant
and I twitched with excitement, laughing and pinching each other while we
waited.
Finally, from the living room we
could hear dad saying “Well, I DO believe Santa came last night. Wow!!
Look at this. Mary, I think you better let the children come in here
now.”
To this, we bolted from the bedroom
and raced into the living room. Bryant went ahead of me and obscured my
view a little as I came around the corner. He plunged onto his knees at
the train set racing around on the floor in front of the tree. Santa had
surely brought him what he wanted.
He was wriggling around so much
that I really couldn’t see a whole lot. Finally, he moved around to the
opposite side giving me full view of all the presents. Sitting right in
the middle of the oval made by the track, being circled again and again by
Bryant’s train, was my cash register. I screeched for joy, retrieving it
from the confines of the track, dancing around hugging it like it might be
alive.
“Open it up, Bethie,” my dad said.
I sat down on the floor, folded my
legs underneath me, reached out and hit the “total” button. The tender
box opened, just like it should. Inside, neatly stacked in four little
compartments were bills and coins of play money. Santa added these
without my even asking. I was truly in
business!
My poor mother. All the rest
of the day while she was trying to prepare our Christmas meal in the tiny
kitchen of the apartment, I insisted on pulling the stepstool up and raiding
her cabinets of canned goods, spices, cereals, flour, sugar and anything else I
could find. As she mixed her fabulous cornmeal dressing for the turkey
stuffing, I lined everything up on the dinette table, placed my cash register
at one end and proceeded to “check out” my imaginary customer from the grocery
store. Over and over and over again, the items would slide across the
table – “cha-ching,” “cha-ching,” “cha-ching.”
“Is that all?” I’d ask.
“Okay, that will be $10.31, please.”
“Cha-ching!”
Over the years, some argue that commercialism has
actually overtaken the purpose of Christmas, that many of our sacred traditions
have eroded or been taken away. There’s one thing for sure, as far as I’m
concerned. The incessant “beep, beep, beep” of the barcode scanners has
taken away something very near and dear to my heart. That would be the
wonderful sound of “Cha-ching!”
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