Tom-Foolery at the Checkout

I love stumping checkers at the grocery store with weird (weird to them, not to me) items from the produce department.  Today it went like this, with a checker whose nametag said “Tom.”

“What IS this?” Tom asked as he picked up a plastic bag with dark blue-green leaves sticking out the top.

“It’s kale,” I replied.  “But not regular.  It’s Lacinato.”

“Loss-i-WHAT-o?” 

“Lacinato.”

“Loss-i……..”

“Loss-i-NOT-o.  Maybe I’m mispronouncing it.  It’s spelled L-a-c-i-n-a-t-o.  I think.”

“I thought you said it was kale.”

“It IS kale!  Lacinato kale.  That’s a variety of kale.  Also known as flat-leaf kale.”  I paused.  What else could I tell him that would help?  “It’s organic.  It’s really the best kale ever.”  I almost went into a dissertation on using Lacinato kale to make awesomely amazing green lemonade in the juicer, but stopped myself in the nick of time knowing Tom could care less.

He punched keys on his computer screen.  “I only find one kind of kale.”

“Well, this is more expensive than the regular curly-leaf kind, so you might want to look again.”

“What did you call it?”

“Lacinato kale.  L-a-c-i-n-a-t-o. I think.”

He punched more keys. “L-A-C….there!  Got it!”  Tom smiled broadly.

I really liked this kid; he’d been smiling the whole time.  Now he shook his head like a little boy as if to say wow, this is crazy.  “Never knew it existed before," he said out loud.  "There’s just too much stuff in the produce section for me to keep up with.”

Too much stuff.  He’s probably a meat-and-potato eater, I thought.  Or a fast-fooder. 

He proved me wrong.  The next item on the belt was another bag of green stuff.  He picked it up, stuck his head into the plastic bag and sniffed it (that was okay with me), then looked up with a victorious smile.  “CILANTRO!  It’s cilantro!  I’m sure of it!”  He waited to make eye contact, and then spoke with almost patriotic allegiance.  “I love cilantro!”

“Bravo,” I said, and clapped miniature applause.  “GOOD FOR YOU!”

He beamed.

The rest of our checkout experience was uneventful.  He rang up the holiday weekend supplies: paper towels and hamburger and brats, mayonnaise and hummus and corn chips.  At the end he handed me the receipt and said, “Have a nice weekend.”

“Lacinato, Tom!” I responded spontaneously, thinking why not, it sounded sort of like a swank, Latin-esque farewell.  Maybe it could be a code word that meant something like you have a good weekend, too!

“Lacinato!” he answered cheerfully, gesturing overhead like a flamboyant Italian.  

The people in line behind me smiled.  ‘Lacinato!” I said to them as I pushed my cart out of the checkout lane.

What a great day at the grocery store.