“Friday Tired” is a clinically isolated condition that affects everyone after five working days in a row.

It’s that numb feeling where, you’re almost to the weekend, but still have to push through an 8-hour day before you start enjoying it.  Because you can’t physically sleep in, you do it mentally, which can result in the situation I came across last Friday morning on the way to work.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve developed a habit of swinging by a store on the way into work every Friday and picking up a half-dozen donuts.  It’s a small treat, but something that everyone at work really enjoys. A few grab a whole one, but mostly, they slice off a chunk, scurry away to their desk with their prize and then, after a while, come back for another slice.

On the most recent pick-up day, I stopped by the Safeway on the way to work, boxed up a half-dozen donuts and headed for the cash register.  The cashier who normally rings up things for me was gone and another familiar face was filling in.  However, I’m pretty sure I had seen her in one of my afternoon stops, not in the waking up hours.

When it was my turn to pay for the donuts, she opened up our conversation by walking through the sentence, “And how’s your day going so far?”, which was quickly followed by “That’s $3.”  I ran my Safeway card through the reader, then a debit card so I could get a little extra cash.  The cashier reached into the cash drawer which had just pulled open, ripped the receipt off of the register and proceeded to hand the cash and receipt to me.  Of course, as is tradition, Safeway likes their checkers to read the name that appears on the receipt to personalize the transaction and say, “You saved $2 Mr. Smith!” or words to that effect.

However, this cashier was definitely “Friday Tired.”  As her eyes scanned the receipt and she turned to face me, her mouth auto-started before she could find the name.  This combination resulted in the words that came out of her mouth: “OK, you save $1.20 Mr…………………….Customer.”   I took what she was handing me, replied “Close enough!” and continued my trek to work.

“Friday Tired”, of course.  Just not THAT “Friday Tired.”

Tim Hunter