The checkout girl in the grocery store

[murielm99]

I really did have this conversation in the store. No, I was not brilliant and scathing, but I want to know if anyone else has heard this lie.

I have to say that my attire invited commentary. I have a button that has a picture of Big Bird saying, "Hey, Mitt!" and flipping off Romney. I still wear it, because it is funny.

The checkout girl, who could not have been more than twenty, said to me, "Is that Big Bird, flipping of McRomney?" I said yes. She said, "I like McRomney." (Yes, she really did call him that). "I wish he had won."

"We would all be a lot poorer if he had won," I said. "I am glad he lost."

I thought that would be the end. Then the little twit said, "Did you notice, that Obama was only elected two weeks ago, and our taxes have gone up already?"

I said, "That is not true. What taxes have you paid in the last two weeks that have gone up?"

She did not answer, but said, "Haven't you heard about that?"

I said, "I have not heard that, because it is not true. You should not be saying that to people in the store, because it is not true."

That is all I said. There was no brilliant argument or anything else. The couple in line behind me did get more friendly after they heard me, but that is all.

Has anyone else heard this lie about taxes?

[Kalidurga]

1. No I haven't heard that about taxes.

It's funny when the people on the other side come up with better names for Romney than we do. McRomney that is a good name for him. I will use that one.

I would say I hope she is in college. But, that would be a lie. I don't think she is college material.

I don't mind my tax dollars going to help people like her. And they will if she never advances beyond her McJob.

I am glad you weren't brilliantly scathing for a couple of reasons. First off it would have been lost on her if you were. But, she would have sensed an insult and she isn't in a great place in her life, so it's better to be kind.

[Agschmid]

2. Eyeroll... really in customer service, she should know better.

The youth is so naive, eh?

[lunatica]

42. She's a cashier in a grocery store

and why should she know better as a cashier? The first clue that she doesn't have a PhD in Customer Service should be when she called Romney 'McRomney'.

[Lilyeye]

3. McRomney?

Yeah, a twit indeed. Thanks for checking her lies right then and there. As for the lie, I always hear republicans spreading that crap, but not recently.

[Wounded Bear]

4. Not surprising....

the whole Tea Party BS was launched immediately after Pres Obama signed a large tax cut into law.

They seem to thrive on cognitive dissonance and denial.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. nope, haven't heard that lie. doesn't matter what lies they put out now

Obama is prez for four more years. McRomney is not.

[RobertEarl]

6. Taxes have gone down.

I was in here before the election and now I am paying less.

McRomney raised taxes to pay for all that TV time and airplanes to fly everywhere. Everyone knows that.

[Cerridwen]

7. Did your area vote on a bond issue? Or

to raise the local sales tax? An increase in property taxes? Or some such?

If so, she may be equating; with help from others; some increase voted for during the recent elections and which are/is being attributed to the President.

Just a thought.

[murielm99]

15. Actually, no.

The community where this conversation took place just defeated a proposed tax hike. They wanted a 1% tax for a sports/community center.

I wonder if this girl pays any type of taxes, other than sales tax. I could be making an erroneous assumption about her.

[Cerridwen]

43. Well, there goes that theory. :) n/t

[Kath1]

8. Wow. That sucks.

All the girls who work at the local Royal Farms, where I get coffee every morning, are big time Obama supporters. I gave all of them "Women for Obama" buttons and bumper stickers and they were thrilled to have them! Good for you for setting her straight. Probably brainwashed by conservative parenting.

[JaneyVee]

9. Probably confusing the fiscal cliff BS. She sounds uniformed.

[Tx4obama]

10. Even IF there had been a tax increase in the past two weeks then ...

then it would not have had anything to do with Obama's re-election.

1) Obama is still in his first term and his second term does not start until January 20th

2) If they are state/county/city taxes then the finger should be pointed at the state/county/city and not at Obama.

Sounds like the gal has been listening to too much FoxNews, talk radio, or republican friends.

[Matariki]

11. I bet she was fucking with you.

Because, McRomney? Seriously? I really bet she was pulling your string.

[RedCappedBandit]

17. Possibly, but I dunno

I have heard people say McRomney as well.

Uninformed people who don't read, basically.

[Raine]

22. "McRomney" probably running the name Mitt & Romney together, a lazy way of speaking. nt

Last edited Sat Nov 24, 2012, 08:45 PM - Edit history (1)

[NBachers]

12. Yup, soon as he got elected, he pushed that "Big New Tax" button right there on his desk

[Zorra]

13. I know a 20 yr.old girl just like that.

She told us that Obama was going to plant chips in all babies born after Jan 1, 2013, so that they could be identified for Obamacare. We started laughing hysterically, (two liberal friends were with me), and then she says, "and he's going to set up abortion clinics in every hospital ~ I read all this on the internet" after that we were howling with laughter, tears running down our faces.

The poor kid gets angry and then goes, "No, really it's true. You'll see."

After we stopped laughing we patiently explained to her that it is legal for people to lie on the internet, and on TV, we told her about Fox News, etc.

Hoping maybe she comes around, because she has a 6 month old baby, and I imagine going through life that ignorant must be hell.

[davidn3600]

16. That is actually a pretty old rumor floating around the net

It goes back several years, a belief that the government wants to create a national database that of everyone's health records so they can be easily accessed by any doctor or health facility in the country. Privacy rights activists jump on any such talk and spread wild rumors on the internet about Big Brother.

So now there was talk of such a database in the bill HR3200 that dealt with people who had pacemakers or other medical devices installed. It made no mention of RFID chips but conspiracy theorists made the claim that it was. HR3200 was not passed. It was a precursor to Obamacare. The ACA that was passed did not have this database language in there.

So that's where that rumor came from.

[aletier_v]

27. implants

http://www.qmed.com/mpmn/article/implantable-rfid-chip-helps-id-medical-devices

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. "It is easier to trick someone

than it is to convince them that they've been tricked." ~Mark Twain

[ancianita]

23. Cute.

[nikto]

18. Give the checkout girl a break...

She's all in a panic about the coming Obama-caused zombie apocalypse.

[Ikonoklast]

41. Meh. The Teabaggers are dying off all by themselves.

By eating their own, and leaving the rest of us alone.


Political Zombie Cannibals whose only hope for survival is to eat each other, or die.

[Kablooie]

19. Maybe she meant it taxes her more to be a Republican now.

[dixiegrrrrl]

62. i would have told her that....

"only Republican taxes are going up"

sometimes I have no tolerance for the stupid.

[dkf]

20. Her taxes probably did go up. The making work pay credit was worth more to low income workers than

The SS tax 2% holiday.

"In 2009 and 2010, the Making Work Pay provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided a refundable tax credit of up to $400 for working individuals and up to $800 for married taxpayers filing joint returns. Most wage earners benefited from larger paychecks in 2009 and 2010 as a result of the changes made to the federal income tax withholding tables to implement the Making Work Pay tax credit."

Unless she works full time and makes more than $9.61 an hour her taxes got raised or she received less of a refund.

[Mariana]

24. If the quote above is accurate

she implied, very strongly, that her taxes have gone up in the last two weeks, not last year.

"Did you notice, that Obama was only elected two weeks ago, and our taxes have gone up already?"

It's highly unlikely that she filed an income tax return during that time. Most likely she was just making shit up, like most RWers do.

[dkf]

26. Well they will go up in one month. Maybe she was notified of the coming changes.

From what I hear no one is talking about extending the 2% payroll tax holiday. That seems to be a foregone conclusion that its gone even if the rest of it is negotiated back to Bush rates.

Frankly I think it's a good thing she will pay more taxes, we all need to. There will never be rational decision making on the cost side if the majority receives more than they pay.

[Fumesucker]

29. And yet the irrational decision making on taxes has been done by the very well compensated indeed

Poor people don't make decisions on taxes, Congresscritters do that and poor people vote at a lower than average rate for all Americans.

It's political decisions by our politicians that have lead to so many poor people in American in the first place, political decisions like rewarding manufacturers with tax breaks for moving jobs offshore.

[WinkyDink]

33. "if the majority receives more than they pay" = So you think Social Security and Medicare are to be

like individual piggy-banks?

[WinkyDink]

32. "her taxes got raised or she received less of a refund" = These are not synonymous terms, FYI.

[SheilaT]

21. She is the poster child for the low information voter.

It's a bit of a shame that you didn't push back on her calling the failed Republican nominee McRomney. It would have been interesting to hear what she thought his real name is.

But thank you for pointing out what she got wrong.

And no, I for one have not heard anything about taxes going up since November 6th. But then, I never turn on Fox "News", or any other right wing propaganda outlet.

I do find that in ordinary conversations, most people cannot back up their assertions. I'm a stickler for detail, for what exactly are the facts, and when I question people, they usually do not know where they heard something. I'm talking all sorts of things, not just the political things we're most apt to discuss here, but every possible comment out there.

Most people find me very annoying.

[Cha]

25. "McRomney"? Is that like a cross between

McCain and Romney.. the two who LOST when one went up against Senator Obama and the other against President Obama? That McRomney?





You did good muriel!

[graham4anything]

28. Actually, in my health club gym, just on Monday morning 515am est, I heard a simliar lie

I was doing one of those leg machines and right behind me, two middle aged folks were talking and (this too is 100% true)

the one said to the other, "you know, I don't want to get into politics"
(that immediately set my Obama radar tingling) and he continued
"but those people don't realize how much more they are now paying for their health care, they just don't realize, and I pity them."

Now, I pay as a self-employed under our own "group" they call it about 3 grand A MONTH to keep mine,which is an old fashioned insurance, no pre-admitance, no cap, no exclusions, which became high since it started 19 years back as a company paid health care for at most $200 a month, then cobraserve, then we paid out of pocket ourself and got a 15% increase every year since (which after cobraserva pushed it to the level it is now.)

The two continued and were by that time shaking their heads in sorrow over who won the presidency.

As I come to the health club to remove pounds and stress, I didn't argue the point that day, but made a mental note of their looks and at the right point one day soon, I am going to give them a piece of my mind.

Do they not know that "Obamacare" has not started yet, and that for 19 years the insurance I had had been upped 15%?

In fact, last May 2012, was the first year we got a ZERO premium increase, and I thank President Obama for making the insurance companies justify now an increase.

So these lies are going around. Stupid fools they are.

And they think they are talking privately and no one else hears them. We do.

(oh, that reminds me, I always wear buttons and have continued to do so. First days after, I altered my Obama button with a second button I overlayed with a sticker that said
THANK YOU AMERICA for reelecting President Obama.

Now I wear a Hillary 2016 button. And have tweeked that a little to Hillary/Michelle 2016.
You should see the looks

[drm604]

30. I think I would have asked her who McRomney is.

Never heard of him.

[NBachers]

34. Maybe she's been watching David Letteman and mis-heard "Mitch Romney"

or, it's a short hop from Mitt Romney to Mick Romney to McRomney

[B Calm]

31. My wife's aunt from Missouri thinks

Obama raised taxes on her four years ago.

I really think you have to be a very stupid person to be a republican.

[WinkyDink]

35. I KNOW it's a lousy job, BUT---Cashiers are to be "unobservant", and DEFINITELY not political!

It's like the theatre's "Fourth Wall."

[KharmaTrain]

36. "People Tell Me"...

...in a previous lifeform I played in talk radio and had this regular caller...an elderly lady who had an opinion on everything. Usually it was way off base...she was an original teabagger 30 years before such an animal was created...and had conspiracy theories galore. She would always preface one of those theories with "people tell me"...that was always the tell that she was ready to fling some more bullshit. I could always imagine her at the beauty parlor with her other neighborhood gossips embellishing as they go along and then by 4pm she was on the phone ready to broadcast their "findings" to the world. It's amazing how this parallels so much of the goofy shit I hear from the great unhinged these days.

[WinkyDink]

49. Funny; I always hear stupid men callers when I catch a bit of talk-radio.

[Populist_Prole]

53. My mother is like that and it drives me crazy

She is not very well read at all and very impressionable from BS from various people she interacts with in her life ( friends, acquaintances, beauticians etc ) and she then holds these crackpot ideas so staunchly that it takes an incredible amount of facts, logic and patience to dislodge these thoughts from her head; and then only when I visit her or speak on the phone, so 9 out of 10 ideas she gets go unopposed.

[rucky]

37. That's all that needed to be said.

no need to be clever or belittling. that never works anyway.

I bet she got on the internet after her shift to check it out.

[Kahuna]

38. You did good. You corrected her lie that she got from God only knows, where.

[Marmitist]

39. That cashier is a grade-A dumbfuck...

I hope she enjoys her job, because I doubt that she's going to advance to a position that requires any thinking beyond running a register.

You should have told her manager that she was engaging in political proselytizing of the customers.

[starroute]

40. She may be picking up discussions about the fiscal cliff and raising revenues

If you run into the claim from her or anyone else, you should say that nobody's taxes have gone up but that President Obama wants to allow taxes to return to 1990s levels for the wealthy while preserving tax cuts for everyone else -- and that the Republicans would rather have taxes go up for everybody than ask the rich to pay one more penny.

[tavernier]

44. I loved the way you handled it.

But can I be totally straight forward with you re. your post?

I don't love the shirt you wore and am surprised that other shoppers warmed up to you.

Yes, I'm from a different generation; I hate going to a restaurant and hearing conversations all around me that start with "Fuck" and end with "fuck". I cringe when I see clothing in a public store/post office/Dr.'s office etc., that contain lude words or images. My first impression of people who wear these articles is 'bad upbringing'.

You are very intelligent and sensitive to the feelings of others in the way you responded to ms. mcCashier. We would probably be great friends especially since we are on the same team politically. I'm just sayin'... don't be surprised if you turn off other old farts like me simply because of your choice of attire.

Yes, I'm prepared for the pelting of the tomatoes, but I just needed to add my two cents. I'm not a prude in any sense of the word, but I am a product of a different generation, as are others of my age, so be forewarned that you might get a similar reaction when out on the town.

[Tsiyu]

54. You sound like my mom

whom I love dearly, but who regularly trolls the grandkids' "myface" accounts

to search out and excoriate any and all "filthy language."

I'm in the middle generation, my head bobbing left and right like someone

watching a tennis match as the older and younger generations

bat verbally at each other over this issue.



In the end, my outrage over the things that people do to each other far, far, FAR outweighs my

outrage at mere words that others may use to express themselves.

What I'm saying is: I wish more older people would be more outraged about what I see as

tragedies and crimes all around.


When all you can focus on are the symbols of young

people's rage and anger and frustration - a.k.a. "dirty words" -

I believe it makes you useless to the cause of change.


YMMV

[tavernier]

60. Yeah, I was pretty certain someone would miss my point

and that is my fault because I didn't explain myself very well.

I know outrage very well. I grew up in the JFK, Kent State, MLK times. I was at Woodstock so you can probably imagine that I've heard and said all the words, smoked and taken all the drugs, been there, done that, have ALL the tee shirts.

I suppose my concern is that the OP was exactly right in both his reaction and comments, and could have used this as a teaching experience to all who were within hearing distance, but unfortunately, first impressions do count.

[slackmaster]

45. It's sad that a young voter could be so poorly informed about things that really matter

[CrispyQ]

46. You handled it perfectly!

Being scathing with a young girl would only have made you look like a bully. She would not have heard a word you said & the people behind you would have thought you were a jerk. The way you handled it was perfect. You were sure of yourself & you politely told the cashier what she said was not true. Maybe she will actually look into it or at the very least, give some thought to what you said.



We cannot let lies like this go unchallenged.

[HopeHoops]

47. Fox has been pushing that one for over a week. It's bunk.

[jimlup]

48. Sounds lke she was just a ignorant person inventing her own reality

to justify the propaganda that she has swallowed hook line and sinker.

[Mariana]

63. In other words, an ordinary, garden-variety Teabagger. nt.

[Ter]

50. I have an explanation for McRomney

Say Mitt Romney quickly or with an atypical voice.

[beyurslf]

51. I hate the lie that taxes are always going up. My dad loves to say that taxes always go up but

never go down and any temporary increase will become a permanent increase. I always point out to him that I am 36 yo and have NEVER had my federal income taxes go up, but I have had several decreases in my rates.

[AngryOldDem]

55. Not only has he raised our taxes...

...he'll also throw us in jail if we don't comply with the health care mandate.

I just read that on another batshit crazy site that I just can't help but read every so often.

Me, I've noticed a direct correlation between the weather getting really cold and the election. So that must mean that hell is freezing over, too, since Obama's reelection.

[stuntcat]

56. McRomney

I'll bet she meant that. And I bet she thought she was saying it right.
Anyone who has more faith than this in their fellow citizens anymore is delusional and fooling themselves about their species, which is a natural and strong instinct, but mark my word, the stupid is stronger than most of us think it is.
We have technology yes, and we aren't so hairy anymore, but it has been proven to me too many times how much we are still animals. And in places where life has gotten "easy", evolution of (edit: some of) our minds has slid backwards.

[Separation]

57. Child tax credit

I have heard a couple people complaining that the child tax credit is going away. I've been to busy lately to look into this and see if its true or just another story.

[this is temporary.]

58. Wow, you called someone a name?

You label her a "girl," so I assume she was under 21. And because she may be uninformed she must be a twit?

Nice attitude!

[murielm99]

59. Thank you, dearie.

I called her a girl because she acted like a child and knew about as much as a child. As for twit, likewise.

[marmar]

61. Stupid people believe stupid things.

nt

[NoGOPZone]

64. She should copyright McRomney before McDonalds tries to steal it nt