The ARC

Yesteday, I went shopping at the ARC store while my brother was in the DMV getting his permit. What a shoddy operation that is. It's almost like they don't care at all that most of their stuff looks old and used. It's quite sad, actually. And very difficult to find things in the right size. Usually, they only have one item of clothing in each size. That's no way to run a business. I'd made my selections, and was standing in line waiting to pay and leave. Checkout too about 10 minutes from start to finish. The lady in front of me was paying with some sort of gift certificate. That alone practically made me laugh out loud. The cashier, who, understandably, hadn't dealt with many gift certificates to the ARC, was quite flabbergasted at the whole process. She called a manager to the front to help her out. The manager's name was, I kid you not, Nadine. I didn't know people in real life were ever actually named Nadine. I was under the impresison that a name like that only existed for the purposes of television writers and trailer trash. Not so. Fortunately for our poor, poor cashier, she had a partner working right next to her. Apparently, her partner's job was to find the tags on the clothes and hold them out for the cashier to scan. Quite an efficient system they have at the ARC. Nadine wanted the partner to leave the cahier station and help her with something, but the partner was clearly too busy for that. She shot back, "I'm working here. Can't you see I'm holding tags?" It was at that moment when I noticed a small sheet on the counter that said, "Tag color price guide." Underneath that, it said, "Furniture -$14.99 and below- black. Furniture -$15.00 and up- black." I'm sure glad they drew a distinction between the two. Wouldn't want them to get confused. Then a guy and his loser friends were walking into the store past me. I overheard him say, "I mean, they're a third-world country, and yet they're a superpower? What kind of s-h-i-t is that?" Yes, he actually spelled it out. That was so stupid, I think my eye started bleeding.