"That's a lot of bananas you're buying," observed the cashier.

My head shot up from where it was buried in my purse.

My face almost crashed against her double G breasts. The suffocating mounds threatened to pop open the little buttons on her black Stop and Shop employee polo. She was facing me, but I could still see her cheetah-print butt on either side of her wide hips. I guess the shirt was the only mandatory part of the uniform. That, and her name tag, which read "Melodee."

"What do you need all these bananas for? You own a monkey farm? You on some weird diet? Maybe I gotta do it too." She let out a loud snort and shook her short, finger-coiled head downward in amusement.

I let out a polite laugh. "My mom just wanted me to get a bunch."

"But at 10:00 at night? Naw...I don't trust people who shop for groceries at night. Only wackadoodles are here at night." She let out a heavy cackle that sounded like an ahooga horn. Her gappy, crooked teeth were yellow, and they looked dirtier against her plump matte fuschia lips.

"Well...you're here."

She cackled again but harder this time so that the large, chunky gold hoops hooked into her drooping lobes swayed violently around her folded neck. She stomped her meaty foot as she let out a couple of phlegmy coughs.

"You're a funny one. You in college right now?" she asked as her neon yellow dragon nails click-clacked on the cubey keyboard.

"No, I'm a senior in high school," I said.

"Well, let me give you some advice: don't take a gap year before college. You'll forget how to be a student. That's what happened to me, and I failed all my classes and got kicked out," she said in an uncharacteristically serious tone as she double-bagged my bananas. She squeezed her thick false lashes shut and shook her head before letting the memory out in a sigh. "But I'm in community college now hoping to get a degree in computer science. I'm actually pretty smart, and I just want to make a better life for myself."

I gave her my credit card and a sympathetic smile. "That's actually really nice. I hope you get everything you're working for." And I meant it.

She gave me a wink before swiping my card and handing it back to me along with my bananas. "And one last thing," she began, "don't put these in the microwave. They'll leak."