So I was working as a cashier at a grocery store that had a gourmet bakery section. They would do everything from custom cakes to donuts, you just had to ask and be willing to wait a bit if you wanted something from scratch. This was my first or second week of working there, and it's a chain grocery store, so they go through cashiers and baggers like candy. I'm pretty nervous about getting fired for nothing.

This lady comes through my line, obviously kind of stressed out, and a little bitchy. You get really used to people being stressed out and bitchy as a cashier, so it wasn't that big of a deal at that point. From what she was buying, it was obvious she was throwing a party of some sort. Plastic silverware, paper plates, napkins, hats, party favors, etc.

And at the end of the line was this gigantic box of hand crafted, custom made, fancy ass mother-fucken cupcakes. These things must have been at least $80 or something. The lady is watching over it like a goddamn hawk, almost as if it was her very child.

I don't freak out though. I keep it cool, I handle bulky items every day. So I gingerly pick this box up, turn it so that the tag goes over the scanner, balance it perfectly, and get it slid onto the next belt to be sent to the bagger.

Were I more into the internet at the time, I would have been thinking, "Fuckyea.jpg!" Responsibility is off my shoulders. I tell the woman her total and she starts writing a check. As I'm sitting there throwing random banter which she's not paying attention to, I catch something out of the corner of my eye. Something terrible. Something unspeakably horrible. I see the bagger. She lifted the box of cupcakes up to put them in the cart. She bends forward a little and as she starts to, everything was slow-motion. My eyes go wide and I stop speaking mid sentence. This cue'd the lady with the check to look at me, notice the look of abject horror on my face and turn to see just as the bagger...

Tilts the box sideways into the cart.

If you ever watch those war movies, where the main character has a good buddy and he gets shot in the head during a battle. The main character runs screaming over to his buddy, yelling "Medic! Medic!" as loud as he can, and just sits there craddling his brother-in-arms' corpse. It was one of those moments. None of those motions actually occurred, but in my head I was screaming for a medic.

Medic, manager, same thing really. It kind of goes without saying that the cupcakes were completely ruined. I flip the switch on my light to make it blink, indicating that a manager is required at my lane. About this time the customer has flipped shit and is going ballistic on the bagger. No physical violence, but oh god the yelling. Things about the lady's son's fifth birthday and how she special ordered those cupcakes a week in advance and they took hours to make and on and on until the manager got there and did managerial magic to fix things. Sort of. That woman was really, really pissed.

I never saw that bagger after that day. I'm just glad I didn't lose my job, but that shit will stay with me until the day I die. Pretty much the only 'Nam moment I'll ever have in my life.