No, no, a thousand times, no!

I have enough parental experience to know you tell children what you want them to do, not just tell them "Don't do (whatever it is they ARE doing)." I mistakenly thought that interaction might work at Wal-Mart.

(By the way, yes I am alive and still "blue." I'm pretty sure that if I keep working at Wal-Mart, my upper torso will take on a navy hue, permanently. But it's still financially necessary, even if I didn't expect to still be here.)

Tonight pushed the limits of my patience. I wasn't on the floor 1 minute and I had my first interaction of this kind. Preschooler riding bike through ladies foundations. Hispanic. Only a 50/50 chance he would understand my words, but the body language and gestures should do it, I figured.

I intercepted him about the time he reached one of his relatives. "He can't ride the bike," I said, motioning for him to get off. "He needs to walk the bike in the store. It's not safe."

Little boy understood the message and didn't like it. He started to whine. None of his family took any steps to get him off the bike. I repeated my request. Then I made another try, to the relative who seemed to understand me. "I could take the bike up to the front registers, and it would be waiting for you when you finish shopping."

Nope, that wouldn't work. Not sure if that was because little boy wasn't going to surrender said bike and no one was going to make him, or because they had no plans to buy the bike -- it was simply entertainment for him while Mom, sisters, aunts, etc. were shopping for bras and panties. But the boy stayed on the bike.

Fine -- looks like I'm going to need to go get a manager. By the way, did I forget to mention little boy was riding barefoot? I went to the front to get my customer service manager, who could decide whether to confront the family herself or call a store manager. At that moment, family comes to front of store, with little boy still riding, right into the checkout aisle. Guests jump from his path.

I hope the family uses more restraint when he comes home and wants to ride the bike without shoes into traffic.

A little while later, it was the tobacco aisle. But handing out death sticks wasn't the end of my worries. I looked up at the guest looking for 25 packs of "Reds" (Marlboro full flavor kings, the most common cigarette people smoke around here) and looked straight into a hand covered with a ball python. OK, I didn't know it was a ball python at the time, but a fellow cashier quickly filled me in. I finished the order and made a request -- "next time, no snakes. We can only have assistance animals in the store."

Wise-cracking fellow cashier: "A seeing-eye snake?"

Actually, we deal with the animal issue every day. Guest with new dog, maybe even purchased in our parking lot (we try to run puppy peddlers off, but it happens). "But he can't stay in the car alone. I just came in for dog food." I recall one night when I was watching the door. Someone tried that line. Naive associate I was, I volunteered to watch Fido while he ran in for "just a bag of dog food." Twenty minutes later he emerged with dog food AND a bed, dishes, toys, treats and a few purchases for himself.

Most of the time, it's little ladies with their tiny, miniature, toy something-or-another stuffed in their purse. They blow by the greeter, then open their purse while they shop. But somehow they still have Furball in the purse when they reach the checkout.

"You know, ma'am, it's a violation of the health code to have animals in the store, unless they're assistance animals," I say.

Lady nods, and it's the cute nod, as if to say "I get told that every time I'm in here and I'll keep doing it."