Dear PoP – Props to Petworth Safeway

It’s not often I get emailed props for the Petworth Safeway, in fact this may be the first one, glad to hear it!

“Dear PoP,

I was at the Petworth Safeway (3830 Georgia Avenue) last night around 8:30 PM. While waiting in line, a checkout clerk opened up the register next to mine and called me over to his register. As I was coming around, someone else rushed in front of me, even though I only had one item. As I was allowing the annoyance to settle in and decide what to do, the clerk reached back to me and told the other person that he had asked me to come to his register and that I was first. The other person was pretty rude, but the clerk kept his composure despite offensive comments from the first person, and just told him, politely, that I was there first and he would take care of him in a minute.

What the clerk didn’t know, is that I was buying hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting in my dog at the advice of ASPCA poison control. He had eaten onions, and in fact it was very important for me to get home as soon as possible. (Many people don’t know this but onions are extremely toxic to dogs, more so than chocolate, and even a small amount can cause great harm).

I didn’t get the clerk’s name but he is a middle-aged thin black man with a mustache, I’ve seen him there before, and I just wanted to recognize his professional behavior which stands out in a world where I’ve gotten used to often apathetic and sometimes downright rude behavior from checkout clerks.”