I had the weirdest cashier at Michael’s last night. He gave that feeling of being just slightly off from the rest of the world. His hair was a shade too dark, his skin a shade too pale and his eyes a shade too bright. I think he was going for “casual friendly” but it was coming out “aggressively friendly” and it clearly made the 40ish-year-old women passing through the till fairly uncomfortable. The women responded but always after a pause, as if they were trying to figure out who this strange male teen figure was in their usually homey craft store. His name tag said, “Hi, I am in charge of customer service” followed by “Chad”, followed by “Internal Production Manager” or some such thing, which was crossed out and he had scrawled in “cashier” instead. It made me think of “The Chad” played by Tom Green in Charlie’s Angels. “Chad the Cashier” had a slight Tom Green weirdness quality about him.

My turn at the till came and the boy didn’t even look at me. He picked up the phone hidden beside the till and dialed. He then glanced down at the counter in front of me and looked dumbfounded. His eyes swept the counter again and his eyes furrowed. “Gift Certificate,” I whispered, just as he began to talk into the phone, “Can you bring me fives and a gift certificate?” He hung up, “I thought maybe it was invisible.” I blinked at him. He stared at me. I stared back at him. There are just some places that I can’t manage small talk and when I have weird guys staring at me is one of them. He finally said, “I need your name because they won’t let us take the book from the front.” I assumed this meant that they recorded who bought the gift certificate in case there was a problem. I gave him my name which he proceeded to write, not on a scrap of paper but on his arm (!)

Oh my god, he has my name on his arm. Every person who goes through this till after me will know that I was there until my name washes off his arm. That could be days. That is incredibly creepy. I was thoroughly relieved that you can’t currently find my phone number or address using the name that I gave. I think that if he would have asked for my phone number I would have just walked out. I stood there, staring in horrified fascination at my name scrawled on his arm. I had the eerie experience of feeling like my name was cut into his skin, drawn out in blood. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand right on end. I eventually got my gift certificate and left, but today I can’t get the image out of my head of my name being carved into his too pale skin.

I guess this is more of a Halloween horror than a Christmastime craft story.