I received the most unexpected compliment Saturday afternoon at Costco. I had just finished deftly emptying my cart at the checkout line when the gentleman in line behind me spoke up.

“I can tell you’ve done this before,” he said as he and his wife smiled in admiration.

It took me a moment to parse what he had just said. Then I grinned and shrugged my shoulders.

“Yeah,” I said, “I used to work in retail and I guess it shows, huh.”

I’d been swiftly pulling out items that somehow went together (like refrigerated items). The hours I spent running a register as a teenager at Dart Drug have stayed with me, I guess. There was a method to it, a rhythm I would get into that became very Zen-like. I loved the physical nature of being a cashier, the challenge of speed and accuracy, the unconscious awareness of where everything is on the counter and how I could simply trust my hands to know where they were going.

Then some bozo would show up in line with a dozen coupons and a checkbook and I’d be cursing and wishing I was somewhere else. Ah, those were the days!

Wow, I can’t believe I just waxed nostalgic about such a shitty job!