Looks up from the cheese fort they built in the aisle

I assume I just have “the look”. Because it’s a semi-frequent situation for me to be standing in a store shopping and minding my own business, only to have someone assume I’m an employee and ask me a question like “Where do ya’ll keep the bathroom cleaner?” or “Can you check and see if they have any more Banana Creme Oikos Triple Zero in the back?”

Then came the rise of those in-store shoppers and personal shopper services, and now even having a cart full of my own groceries doesn’t guarantee I won’t be mistaken as being an employee and asked for assistance.

I mostly don’t mind, though and I do go out of my way to help short people reach items on the top shelf if I notice them struggling. Women and older people usually seem pretty happy about it, younger non-geriatric men seem to be less enthusiastic.

I was told 20 years ago: “I knew it! You just look like a whiskey guy”. I am still riding that high.

A few years ago a man stopped me in the dairy section of a store because his wife had sent him to get cream cheese and he didn’t know which kind he should get. This man looked at me and said “this is someone who knows things about cream cheese”, and he was fucking right!

It was at that moment that I knew I had peaked.

Me smelling the different camemberts in the aisle to find the stinkiest most ripe one to buy.

I’ve been mistaken for an employee in different stores so many times because I just “look like I work here” even though I’m usually not wearing anything close to the store uniform. It’s happened at a gas station, flower shops, supermarkets, home improvement stores, and once at IKEA.

eyes fluttering, neck tilted slightly sideways:

“I am a connoisseur, of cheese…”