Stand-Down Comedian

Office administrator Garrison Peters visited a Hyde Park, Massachusetts Stop & Shop grocery store to pick up a few items. What wasn’t on his shopping list was having his dreams crushed by a humorless cashier.

Everyone at work says I’m hilarious,” says Peters. “I love making jokes and seeing people laugh, and I take that energy with me everywhere I go.”

Unfortunately, the Hyde Park Stop & Shop is where he took his energy that particular evening.

“I just love talking to people,” says Peters, “so when I go shopping or something I always make it a point to talk to the employees and try to spread some joy.”

“Yeah, I remember that guy,” says sales associate Noel Geffries. “He was in the produce section and made a joke about ‘taking a leek’, like a pee-pee joke.”

“Oh my god,” says Peters, “I had that guy cracking up!”

“Yeah, I like gave him a pity chuckle,” says Geffries. “It’s just what you do.”

“He asked me if the price of the Oreos was the actual price or his phone number,” says stocker Gwenevieve Dunn. “I didn’t really get how that was funny. The Oreos are like $4.59, I don’t see how you could make that mistake. But yeah, I still gave him a little laugh, whatever.”

“Because the prices are so high!” says Peters. “Get it?! Inflation!”

As he walked the aisles, Garrison Peters made several other jokes much to the feigned delight of people around the store. He told one customer in front of the spices that he had some sage advice while holding a shaker of sage, asked the seafood counter attendant if the lobsters believed in Santa Claws, and told a worker stocking the almond milk that it must be rough waking up at 5am every day to milk the almonds. Yes, Peters was having a grand time!

But not every employee of the grocer was quite so willing to… humor him.

“He came through my line like halfway through my shift,” says cashier Denise Brown. “I was like six minutes away from my break and I wasn’t feelin’ it with anyone at the moment. He unloaded his basket on my belt and asked me how my day was going. I said ‘fine’ and started scanning.”

It was then that fate decided to throw a computer glitch into Peters’s fragile world.

“I tried to scan a jar of pickles or something,” says Brown, “and it didn’t go through. So I tried like two or three more times and I kept getting an error.”

Garrison Peters, as hilarious and quick-witted as he was, couldn’t let this prime opportunity pass him by.

“Oh, did it not scan?” he said, barely able to contain his own giggles. “Guess it must be free then!”

Brown didn’t respond as she performed a lookup on her terminal and continued scanning items.

“It’s not though, is it?” said Peters not sure if the cashier had heard his zinger.

“What?” said Brown looking up from the belt.

“Is it free?” asked Peters, feeling flush and droplets of sweat form on his brown. “Because it didn’t scan, does that mean it’s free?”

“No,” said Brown as she totaled the order.

“You know, because–”

“That’ll be $98.74,” said Brown, staring intently at Peters.

“Yeah, okay, sure,” he said, his mouth drying out. He fumbled with his card in the reader as his hands shook, apologizing for putting it in backwards. He paid for his transaction, grabbed his bags, and left the store.

“That crap was brutal,” said Phillip Cottrell who was behind Peters in line, “genuinely hard to watch. I tried to catch his eye and like give him a smile, but he didn’t look. You could literally see the poor man break.”

“He was right though,” said nearby customer Angela Shaw. “When something fails to scan twice it’s free. That’s the law. I’d have asked for the manager.”

When asked how she could be so terse to a man who just wanted to make her laugh and brighten her day, Brown remarks: “I don’t care. I don’t gotta laugh at every customer who comes in here and makes a stupid joke. Not like he’s out here trying to be a professional comedian or something.”

But that’s where Denise Brown was as wrong as she was cruel.

As it turns out, Peters’s coworkers, all of whom find him hilarious, had convinced him to sign up for an open mic night appearance at a local comedy club that weekend in the hopes that it would spark a successful career in standup comedy. But now….

“It was such a rude awakening,” says Peters. “I just don’t think I can get up in front of all those people now. I can’t go through that again.”

As Garrison Peters walked out of Stop & Shop he wiped his eyes on the back of his free hand before taking out his phone and calling the comedy club to cancel his appearance.

“It’s just an open mic thing,” says the manager of the comedy club. “He could’ve just not showed up. A lot of people don’t."

“I thought I had this gift to share with the world,” says Peters, “but now I know I’m just another talentless schmo.”

Peters also opened a group chat with his coworkers on LinkedIn and gave them the devastating news.

“I can’t believe that cashier did this to him,” says Joe Amos, an officemate of Peters. “He hasn’t been the same since.”

“He’s just a shell of the man he was before,” says Joyce Zhang, another coworker. “It’s like that cashier snuffed out the light inside him, our light. I just hope he can get past this, even if he doesn’t go pro. This place is just so abysmal without his humor.”

“I don’t know if I can ever make a joke again,” says Peters.

We’re told by Stop & Shop management that even after several of Peters’s coworkers made complaints and even sent a petition to have her fired signed by over 12 people, no disciplinary action has been taken against Denise Brown.

“We had a talk with her about being nicer to customers,” says Brown’s direct supervisor, “but the fact of the matter is cashiers are not required to laugh at customers’ jokes, no matter how hilarious and original they are.”

When asked if she had any remorse for the complete annihilation of a fellow person’s hopes and dreams she said “I did that man a favor. He was not funny. Like at all.”

Well, okay, she’s just a jerk because that dude was hysterical. He really tickled my funny bone. You know, my... humerus.