Salvation on Special

By the time I looked up I could see the man working the register was growing a little concerned. How long had I been staring blankly, after he tallied the total. He was holding his hand out, waiting for me to deposit my I-shop-here-frequently card into his palm, but I was just standing there like somebody had hung their keys up on a mannequin.
It was clear this man hadn't had this situation in mind when he came in to work today.
I wanted to say something like, sorry, lost my train of thought. But my mouth was so dry it came out as a slurred, "Srey, mos mmmmy...," before I was able to cut it off.
The cashier was saying: I'll just swipe your card!
The cashier was thinking: ohmygodthisguyshavingaseizure.

The thing that had set my mind in some repeating loop was the name tag the guy was wearing. Below the printed "Emmet" was a helpful suggestion that read Ask Me About _____. At this juncture, Emmet had taken it upon himself to scratch out the special of the week, and had written in "JESUS".
What I think hit the reset button for me was that I didn't understand that he meant the Son of God. The Jesus that immediately came to my mind was some Catholic kid, not the King of the Jews. I wondered if this would prove problematic for Hispanic customers. "Jesus? Our cousin? Does he work here?"
When I finally realized the particular Jesus he meant, I was thrown into some kind of shock. Of all the check-out lanes I could have taken, I ended up here with Emmet. I wondered if the lady in the express check-out invited you to ask her about Odin.
I was racking my brain. I couldn't think of anything to ask. I was really flabbergasted. All I could think about was how I used to tell people the "33" on Rolling Rocks referred to how old Jesus was when he died.
You can pretty much tell people anything when you wear glasses, and when I tell them that, I follow it up by telling them my glasses don't even have prescriptions, and they believe that too.
Despite my glasses, I was still standing there having some sort of breakdown. Nothing was coming to mind to ask this man about Jesus. I felt like someone just gave a really great speech, but I couldn't bring myself to ask any questions when they said, "Any questions?"
Of course I had questions! Maybe I would have thought about my questions if I hadn't been comparing Reduced Fat Cheez-Its to just Regular Cheeze-Its! People were gathering up behind me. I had finally reached the man on the mountain and I was blowing it!

I couldn't risk trying to speak again, so when Emmet handed my my change I tried my best not to smile like a crazy person.
It's hard to push a shopping cart out onto the parking lot when you're convinced you're going to be hit by a car, or probably a truck lamenting the demise of Dale Earnhardt.