A False Start at the Supermart

Whatever happened to customer service?
I stopped at the store and, Heaven, preserve us!
A quick trip transformed me into an ill mood
With retailing rudeness and bad attitude.

As I walked in the door, a uniformed girl
Swerved a bevy of carts into me with a whirl.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" she snarled with a scowl,
Then uttered a long stream of verbage most foul.

I wanted to turn and stomp out of the store,
But I wondered: would it be much better next door?
Above the door, words flashed in neon so bright:
"In our place, the customer is always right."

I gathered my items and crossed off my list;
Asked a stocker for help, and he held up a fist.
My patience unwinding, I raced with my cart
To the least lengthy checker, who seemed so street smart.

With four-inch-long talons, she dialed her phone
And started to gab in a zone all her own.
Behind me, a baby decided to wail,
As the chatty cashier gnawed her long pinky nail.

Thus frustrated, glanced I at all of the rows,
Attempting to check out, or else come to blows.
Yet each of the registers offered no hope,
So how was a shopper intended to cope?

The guy in line seven had broken a jar,
And the one on eleven was simply bizarre.
But right in between them, cashier number ten
Was arguing prices with two older men.

At this point, I clung to my last final nerve,
For it surely was more than I'd come to deserve.
Then I heard a voice, though perhaps in my mind:
"Need an etiquette cleanup on aisle number nine."