Some days I wonder how I keep my mouth shut.

I had an incredibly surreal experience today. If I didn't know I had been awake I would have attributed it to a stress dream, because I have had dreams in this vein early into other retail jobs when I'm not quite sure what I'm doing.

So, today I woke and had a calm quiet start to my day, which was a stark contrast to yesterday where I stumbled out to the bus stop without my ankle brace, realizing after the fact that at some point over the last several days in the many times I had tripped over something I had seriously twisted my left ankle. ALWAYS THE LEFT ONE.

Anyway I got to the bus stop, figured I would put on my ankle brace after I got to work and realized about 15 minutes after the bus should have arrived that.. the bus was on some kind of Holiday schedule. So I pulled GoHRT.com and discovered it was on SUNDAY schedule which means no bus. Which means no work, because I have already stumbled on an injured ankle to the bus stop and I do not have time to stumble home, brace it and get to work on time, and I do not have the pain meds to do that, RUN on that injured ankle the almost 2 miles to work, work the 6 hour shift, and walk back home. Then the migraine I had been fighting all week kicked back in. So, I walked home, called work, explained that I had injured my ankle and would not be able to walk to work and back and the buses were not running because New Years but that I would be there for work tomorrow (Today) and Sunday.

So today I had a nice quiet morning, and even slept in a bit. I had some breakfast, braced my ankle, caught the bus at a reasonable time, clocked in on time, and promptly found that.. all the registers were not functioning correctly. Okay well I know some of the tricks, reboot this one, jump on that one, go from there. Shortly after I arrive the person on the self-check machine goes home and I take over to find, that not only is the pin pad not functioning but the register is freezing every other transaction. Also about this time the rest of the cashiers go home.

So now, I get to explain as calmly as I can manage (with a migraine of course, and no medicine on me except motrin which is like taking sugar pills) that,

"No you can't do Military discount on self check, and yes I am the only cashier and no I can't ring you out right now because my register is rebooting.

Yes I would be happy to ring you out but it will take about two minutes for this to come back up, one moment please let me help that customer...  because I can actually assist them.

No they aren't line jumping, that is why I am HERE at self check, I'm not actually here to ring people out.

Okay now I can ring you out.. Okay I'm sorry but I'm going to have to manually key in your credit card. I need to see your ID please. Why? Because I'm manually typing in your credit card and you've written see ID. Well I can't give you the military discount without the ID either.. No speaking to a manager won't change that. One moment please... I'm sorry my phone isn't working."

*frantic dialing of Customer Service Desk, in which the phone cord falls out*

Just.. This is.. retail.
Why am I in college? Read that scenario. Repeat for 16.5 years about 5-6 days a week for between 5-9 hours per day, with only breaks as required by law per state or federal guidelines. NOT THAT I AM COUNTING.