Cashiers ring up hundreds of customers every week, so it’s safe to say they’ve seen just about everything. While most aren’t paying nearly as much attention as shoppers imagine, certain purchases tend to stand out more than others.
Here are a few things that cashiers might secretly notice, question, or quietly chuckle about while scanning your items.
An Entire Cart Full of Junk Food
A candy bar or bag of chips doesn’t attract any attention. But when a cart is overflowing with soda, frozen pizza, cookies, chips, and candy, cashiers can’t help but notice the lack of anything remotely nutritious.
Expensive Bottled Water
Fancy alkaline water, oxygen-infused water, and designer bottled water often raise a few eyebrows at checkout. To many cashiers, it can seem strange to spend several dollars on something that is, at its core, still just water.
Lottery Tickets and Scratch-Offs
Buying an occasional lottery ticket is common enough. What tends to stand out is when customers purchase large stacks of scratch-offs or start scratching them before they even leave the checkout area.
Alcohol at Unusual Hours
A bottle of wine with dinner ingredients rarely gets a second glance. Buying alcohol first thing in the morning or making multiple alcohol purchases throughout the day is more likely to spark some silent curiosity.
Large Quantities of Laxatives
Everyone needs medicine from time to time, and cashiers generally don’t judge routine purchases. What gets noticed is when someone places a surprisingly large pile of laxatives on the counter, leaving plenty of room for speculation.
Novelty T-Shirts
Shirts with outrageous slogans, questionable jokes, or attention-grabbing graphics often earn a silent laugh from the person ringing them up. Cashiers have seen enough of them to know that someone is either buying it as a gag gift—or plans to wear it proudly.
Cigarettes
Cigarette purchases don’t necessarily stand out on their own. However, some cashiers admit they take notice when cigarettes are being purchased alongside items clearly intended for young children.
Celebrity Gossip Magazines
Magazine racks may not be as popular as they once were, but celebrity gossip publications still have their fans. Picking up a stack of tabloids can sometimes make cashiers wonder just how invested you are in celebrity drama.
Extremely Large Bulk Purchases
Buying a few extra items is one thing, but purchasing 20 cans of tuna, 15 energy drinks, or enough ramen noodles to feed an army tends to attract attention. Cashiers often find themselves inventing stories about what could possibly require that much of one product.
Related: 7 Stores With Bulk Deals That Rival Costco
Strange Product Combinations
Sometimes it’s not the individual items but the combination that catches a cashier’s eye. Cold medicine, a plunger, cat food, duct tape, and ice cream in the same transaction can leave them wondering what kind of day you’re having.
