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Retail small talk can travel from ordinary to bewildering before the cashier finishes handing over a receipt.

How does a friendly conversation about grocery work become a government conspiracy story involving Amazon?

This cashier had more questions than the checkout line allowed.

The receipt printed, but the explanation never did.

One of the Weirdest…

I am a cashier at large grocery chain.

It’s about 6 pm, and my shift is almost over.

A normal looking middle-aged lady comes on my line.

We exchange pleasantries, and I begin to ring up her order.

She goes to the back and bags. All good.

This woman learned that the customer also worked for a large grocery chain.

She asks how long I’ve been working there.

She tells me she also worked at a competitor for 11 years and liked it.

So she pays, and I give her her receipt.

Then, she begins to tell me she was enslaved by the U.S. government for 40 years.

She asked her to repeat what the customer said.

I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly so I said, “Say again.”

She goes on about how she was in forced labor with no pay for 40 years.

Then, they started to pay her 1/2 pay.

She went on to say she now gets double pay and was pulled out by Amazon.

She also said there were thousands like her.

She would have asked the customer to elaborate on her story had there not been any more customers.

At that point, I had another customer to tend to.

I would have loved to ask her how she worked at the grocery store while enslaved by the government.

But I didn’t have the time.

Weird, indeed. Let’s check out the comments of other people on this story.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

Just smile and nod your head, says this one.

This person shares a similar experience.

Here’s an honest assumption from this user.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a fast food employee who shuts down a customer angry about her change with a single word.

Finally, people find it weird, too.

The customer began normally, then claimed she endured decades of unpaid government labor before Amazon somehow rescued her.

The cashier could not reconcile that story with her 11 years at another grocery store, but the next customer ended any follow-up.

She bought groceries and left the cashier holding an industrial-sized bag of unanswered questions.