Not best friends, not strangers, just familiar background characters in each other’s late-night lives.

One night a few months ago, I was shoving a cart full of cereal and frozen pizza down the aisle when I heard yelling.

Not annoyed muttering—full-volume, echo-down-the-aisles yelling.

I turned the corner and saw a middle-aged guy towering over a young assistant whose badge said “Jenna.”

He was waving a receipt in her face like it had personally offended him.

“The sign says two for five!” he shouted. “Two.

For. Five. Are you stupid?”

Jenna kept apologizing, voice shaking but still soft.

“Sir, the sale is only on the smaller cans,” she said.

“I can show you—”

He cut her off, louder.
“I don’t care,” he snapped. “You charged me wrong. Fix it.

That’s your job.”

People were hovering nearby, pretending to compare soup labels while obviously watching the train wreck.