OK, so the other night, Shawn wanted authentic Mexican food!  That meant one thing: a trip to St. Paul's Super Mercado on Caesar Chavez Blvd.  I love going there because they always have the best Mexican cuisine and spices and herbs that you can't find anywhere else.  It reminds me of home too!  Being from Texas, there is a Super Mercado on every corner where you can find good food--but since I came to the frozen tundra--in Minnesota--that occurrence is about as rare as a dog with a leash in the projects!

Well, so we get over there to the store, Andrew and I, and we're doing our shopping. I'm happy too cause my little 20 month old is finally over his cold. He'd been sick from playing with one of his church friends who had a runny nose and passed it along to our whole damn house. We had it coming out of both ends--and everybody was sick, me, Shawn, Andrew and the roaches.  But after a week of sleepless nights, $200 on prescriptions and three visits to the pediatrician, we were finally cleared for take off.

The trip to the Super Mercado was our first outing since Andrew was able to breathe clearly without his nebulizer treatments every four hours.  We get in the store and he's kicking over the pinatas and running up and down the aisles playing.  I'm picking up my Mexican cheese and the beef that I love so much that they pre-season that's so spicy just the smell alone makes your mouth water and your nose run!  It wreaks of peppers!

So we get up to the counter to pay for the items and the damned cashier sneezes in her hands, wipes her fingers on her shirts and proceeds to ring us up. I grabbed my basket and told her "Oh no, until you either get some hand sanitizer or some soap and water, you ain't touching my groceries."

She ain't speak English so two guys stocking groceries saw the drama and came up to translate for her (hell, and for me too).  She quickly copped an attitude and rolled her eyes.  She told 'em something in Spanish to which they informed me that I needed to scan my own groceries.

I politely put them all up on the counter and scanned them myself. She pressed a button and the total came to $9.41!  I pulled out my credit card and for a split second I had amnesia, cause I forgot just that quick that this heffa had just sneezed in her hands and didn't bother to wash up or use hand sanitizer!

She grabbed for my card and I told her, "Oh no sister.  I will swipe it myself cause I don't trust you." 

The translators were still hanging around and they told her what I said. I was standing there with my hands on my hips in that mean "sister girl" stance ready to pounce on her if she even thought about touching me or anything that would enter into my home at any point in my lifetime.  She rolled her eyes and said something in Spanish to the two guys and they told me "She says you can't come behind the counter because it's just for employees and that's where the credit card machine is."

I told them, "Well you can inform her that until she learns proper hand washing techniques, she can pay the $10 for this food cause I'm taking it home with me. I did NOT drive all this way with gas at $3.50 a gallon to come back with cash and buy it all over again because she was too nasty to go the restroom and wash her hands.  She ain't even pull out a Kleenex and wipe the damn spit off her fingers."

At that point, I was livid and yelled out, "I want to see a manager!" 

The guys started chuckling when they told me, "She is the manager."

Child, I politely picked up my groceries, grabbed my baby and headed to the car. I wasn't gonna give her my credit card and I wasn't going to ride all over Caesar Chavez Blvd looking for a damn ATM machine for something that was her fault.  Had she been sanitary enough to wash her hands, this whole situation could have been avoided.  But now, I done spent 2 hours in line arguing with her through translators and she is out of $10 cause I refused to pay for my groceries.

So I get home, I'm pissed, steam coming off my damned head.  Shawn walks in the door all excited cause the aroma of authentic Mexican is spreading throughout the house.  He walks over to the stove and gives me a kiss on the neck.  His joy quickly turns to terror when he looks over in the pot and asks "Baby, what's that meat?"

"Oh," I tell him, "it's Mexican beef tips. They come pre seasoned and they are delicious! I'm putting that in the nachos."

"Count me out. I'm just going to run to McDonald's or something. I ain't never seen beef that lean before." He quipped, "It looks like dog. Instead of calling it beef tips they should call it dog tips. I know dog when I see it."

Needless to say, after all that drama, we wound up having Big Macs!