How could he not know?

Yesterday I went to the grocery and purchased what I considered to be basics. Vegetables (loose Cubanella peppers, green cabbage, bunched labeled radishes, and bagged and labeled Brussels sprouts), fruit (bananas, bagged and labeled red grapefruit and Gala apples) plus milk and a few other items. In the check out line I was brought up short by a couple of things.

The person at the register was a tall, pleasant young man, possibly in his 20s. Perhaps he was in school working part time, or perhaps this job was all that was available to him in these tough economic times. I don't know. What I do surmize by looking at him was that he was morbidly obese. Even with his height I would guess that he was at least 75 pounds over weight. His belly not only hung over his belt, but it literally rested on the edge of the conveyer belt moving my purchases to the bagging area. I wondered about his habits and health based on his appearance.

Then as he registered all my items - scanning bar codes on most, having to weigh others - I was shocked again by his lack of awareness of fresh produce. He queried me about what the following items were:

• green cabbage
• radishes (they had a label)
• Cubanella peppers 

What had happened here? I don't consider these items obscure - ok, the Cubanella peppers may not be as common as the other two, but he seemed to not even know they were peppers. Did he really not know what these items were? Had he grown up not having them as a regular part of his diet? Did he not ask about the other items because they were obviously labeled with bar codes easily read by the technology? 

This isn't the first time a checkout person asked questions about the items I purchased. Unfortunately that is all too common as the emphasis is on speed (scanning as much as possible as quickly as possible) trumps product knowledge. But it is the first time I've been asked by someone where the apparent deficit had such potentially large implications. Maybe mine were the only items in the produce section he didn't know. I hope so.