Pregnancy Test Vent/Rant.

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

Hello my vagina-lovers,

Tonight I went to the grocery store to pick up some milk - I love me some milk. Anyway, I got in the express checkout lane cause there was only one girl in front of me, and I only had 2 gallons of milk. Anyway, as is the norm, the checker was trying to make small talk with the girl in front of me. To my horror, as she is scanning things, she pulls a pregnancy test out of the girl's basket as says, "Uh Oh."

I cannot imagine how this girl felt - I was completely horrified that the lady would say something like that. Regardless of whether she's trying to conceive or isn't, "uh oh" felt really inappropriate to me.

I'm thinking about contacting the manager of the store about it to be honest. Cause "uh oh" wasn't the last of the conversation. It continued on as the woman said, "better you than me. I've got 3 kids already, I don't want anymore." I mean, the girl had a bunch of other things in her basket, like blue berries, and raspberries. They could have talked about anything other than the pregnancy test, but that's what the checker fixated on.

In my head, I know the cashier meant well, and was really trying to make conversation. Maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion, but golly. It just seemed such a wrong thing to say.

Thoughts?

Comments

[theatreant.livejournal.com]

I'm a little awkward in social situations, and it definitely took me until I was ohhhh..... 19? before I could even buy pads and tampons without blushing and feeling weird at a checkout. Hell, I still blush a little at 23. I make my boyfriend buy the condoms. If I had a yeast infection I'm 100% sure I could never bring myself to buy anything at the store JUST for the very reason you said in your post. I think if I had to buy a pregnancy test and somebody said "uh oh" I'd probably have to walk away. LOL. When I worked retail the golden rule was don't make small talk about purchases unless it's something harmless like a watermelon or a bag of grapes :P

[mandy.livejournal.com]

Talk about insensitive :/

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

Yes! I could NOT believe the woman would say that, and make the WHOLE conversation about that. It was so painfully awkward, and it wasn't even about me, I wanted to find the girl in the parking lot and apologize for the woman's behavior!

[theatreant.livejournal.com]

Honestly, walgreens.com was my savior for many years when I needed blushable things. I was so humiliated by the whole period thing I couldn't even ask my MOM to get me stuff. She'd be like "Do you need any tampons" and I'd be all blush, mumble, look at the ground "NO." when in reality I had nothing LOL! I think it's because I was raised to not talk about it. Or maybe because I was such a late bloomer :P I dno. But ordering online saved me!

[mydocuments.livejournal.com]

When I had to buy a pregnancy test last, the cashier, an older lady, mid to late 60s, announced to the entire freaking Walmart, it felt like, "OH DO YOU NEED A PREGNANCY TEST I CAN GET YOU ONE OF THOSE!" and then proceeded to congratulate me as I left. It's like, "this is not necessarily something to congratulate me, but I cannot yell at you because you were totally sweet otherwise."

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

Oi. Like I said, I get that they mean well, and that it's not malicious, but a little tact never killed anybody.

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

Totally.

[vdoeschallenge.livejournal.com]

ugh I'm glad I made my boyfriend buy the test whenever I needed it. :\ He made me sit in the car though.

[extraneousrooot.livejournal.com]

Wow. I would have been pretty pissed - not because I personally am easily offended but that is pretty fucking horrible and she should not be saying that to people especially since if it IS an uh-oh, she probably felt shitty enough about it and if it wasn't an uh-oh, who the hell wants to hear that?

There's a girl/woman (I am awful at telling age - she could be 16 or she could be 30) at the walmart near me and last time I bought a test she wished me luck on the outcome of my choice, but I was totally cool with it since we see each other all the time. But if I were the woman in front of you on line I'd have raised some holy hell to the manager. Tact, people!

[skyladagaz.livejournal.com]

i'd be totally embarrassed, especially if i didn't want to even be pregnant.

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

And I'd be totally enraged if I did want to be pregnant. I mean, "uh oh"? Really? That's just not a good response, no matter what.

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

I'd rather people just not say anything about it at all. It's a pregnancy test, not a land mine, you know?

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

I've had to buy a few and I don't think I've ever had anyone ever say something like that to me. It's great that you have such a supportive boyfriend to do that for you. :)

[applefaerie.livejournal.com]

Oh lordy. Did the cashier seem like she'd been on the job a while, like, say, didn't have to look up codes for produce, or was fast at scanning things and bagging them? If she was slow, had to look up codes, it could be that she was new, and was really uncomfortable ringing out the pregnancy test. I know that when I was a cashier, I was pretty gunshy when it came to ringing out condoms and female products because I know how it is to be on the other side of the counter BUYING those things. Granted, I never decided to blather on with the customer about said purchase which made at least one of us uncomfortable, but social awkwardness presents differently in some than others ;) My first day at the porn shop was the worst, a guy would bring up his porn and I'd retreive the disks to put in their cases, and be looking at the titles and pics on the cases thinking "So THAT'S what he's into... /blush", but by the second day it was just grab the disk, slap it in, ring it up, put it in the bag and tell the dude to enjoy.

I do think it was pretty insensitive of the cashier, and I probably would have said something quietly to the cashier herself after the customer in front of me with the test was out of earshot, just because I think I'd probably point it out in a kinder, less "oh my GOD you BAD BAD CASHIER" sort of way than your typical manager might. Or I would have interrupted the cashier and asked something random like do they have a savings card program or whether it'd be okay if you ran and grabbed X item really quickly, something to disarm the situation and take the focus off of the customer buying the pregnancy test.

That said, if your gut feeling is to call the manager and ask for them to make sure their cashiers are more sensitive to personal purchases like that, do so. It wasn't appropriate for that cashier to be so familiar with the customer, when it seems pretty clear that they didn't know each other from outside the store.

[extraneousrooot.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, definitely, especially if you aren't super-talky.

[applefaerie.livejournal.com]

Awwwwwww I always feel like telling the little old lady cashiers they're "such a dear", especially when they're all bumbly and concerned with ASSISTING THE CUSTOMER COMPLETELY!!! like that. That's so adorable. But yes. I would have been mortified.

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

I'm really not sure, she was on the express lane, and I've seen her at the store before (but that doesn't mean much, I've only been living in this city for about a month). It was definitely not appropriate cause there was me and a dude behind me right in line behind this poor girl.

If it ever happens in the future I think I'll be better armed to diffuse the situation, but I was just so shocked today I didn't know what to say. =/

[vdoeschallenge.livejournal.com]

Yeah he's really lovely.
I did end up being pregnant and he was supportive of my choice to have an abortion, even though I was nervous he wouldn't be because he is very strongly Catholic.
He is as understanding of womanly(feminist too, you could say) things as a man can be I think, as he grew up in a house with 2 sisters and his mom is a very strong woman and ran the place. :)

[melodic-lyrics.livejournal.com]

Awww, that's wonderful that he was so supportive. :)

How long have you two been together?

[vdoeschallenge.livejournal.com]

yeah I think it would be really hurtful if you had been having problems getting pregnant and were really really hoping this was your month!

[vdoeschallenge.livejournal.com]

a year and a half now and we were close friends for a year before that. :)
We are pretty serious, and moving in together(with another mutual friend) in a few months. We are both advocates of test drive before you buy, hahaha. We're mostly moving in because it will be convenient and cheaper than each of us having our own place in a city we both moved to for college. I'm hoping things go well!

[paraxeni.livejournal.com]

It used to break my heart taking calls from kids, desperate to get their hands on an HPT, but terrified of being judged. I always tried to tell them "Don't worry, their job is to sell you stuff, not judge your purchases" when I knew in the back of my mind that it happens all the time. It's awful.

I did have a funny checkout experience. We had a friend celebrating her 18th, and she was from somewhere near the countryside, in a place whose inhabitants we fondly referred to as "woollybacks" due to their proximity to sheep, and all the silly 18 year old jokes that entails. (Bloody joke's on me now, as I live in the actual countryside, with sheep all over my village. I'm now a woollyback!) Anyway, we went to the supermarket and bought her a stuffed toy sheep, a massive tub of vaseline, a litre of vodka, a bottle of baby oil, a cucumber, and a jumbo box of condoms. There was no self-checkout in those days, and to my horror the only cashier available was one of my mother's best friends. Oh my. 13 years later and I'm not sure who blushed more, me, the cashier, or our sheep-loving friend!

[belleforbass.livejournal.com]

I work at a supermarket, do my shopping there too. I have been buying some as we are TTC and trying to keep it quite, but the looks I get from my friends at work are funny, I just smile and pretend otherwise.
But thats different its you know friends of mine.

The people I serve who buy them I don't 'ignore' it but I don't pay attention to it.

Its horrible what she did and if I was in your position I would call up.

*nods*

[make-me-stay.livejournal.com]

That's so completely inappropriate, regardless of how well meaning the cashier was. I've worked various retail and hospitality jobs, and while mindless friendly chat is part and parcel of the job, there are limits!

I, personally, would contact the manager, because it's not part of the job of the checker to make value judgments on personal items; especially something as personal as a pregnancy test. You can just explain what you heard, and maybe ask him to go over what appropriate conversation between checkers and customers is.

[elialshadowpine.livejournal.com]

If I were the girl, I'd have demanded to see the manager. Pregnancy tests are something that should be handled discreetly, not something to make small talk about, because people are so self-conscious about them.

As for "better you than me"... ok, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that implies the girl would want the pregnancy. She could have a medical condition that would kill her if she tried carrying to term, for all the clerk knew! Never mind that there are plenty of people that just don't want kids and that's a perfectly valid choice.

Yeah. I'd contact the manager, because that's woefully unprofessional behavior in my book.