The Coming Intelligentsia

Yesterday I heard a man on the radio giving a tribute to his niece, one of the unfortunate victims of the recent Colorado supermarket massacre. She was a young woman "with so much potential." She was "one of a kind." To illustrate this, he explained that "you never knew from day to day what color her hair would be, or what tattoo she would get next."

Apparently hair color and tattoos are indicators of this generation's talents, skills and brains. So I was surprised this morning at the market when the checkout girl with the turquoise hair did the following. When bagging my groceries, she set aside a large bottle of V-8 juice, a 4-pack of toilet paper and a cardboard container of Comet cleanser. The job finished, I was presented with two fairly empty large brown grocery bags, along with the other loose items. 

I asked, "What about these things?"

She responded, "They shouldn't go in with your groceries."

I asked, "Why not? How am I supposed to carry all these things?"

She responded, "They could contaminate the food."

Besides her turquoise hair, she had a tattoo of a teddy bear on one forearm and a unicorn on the other. Obviously this girl has a lot of potential.