Trauma of the wilted lettuce

 Chuck Burke, assistant manager of the Summerside Superstore, considered himself a man of unflappable calm. He'd handled everything from a rogue lobster in the seafood aisle to a customer demanding a refund on a half-eaten rotisserie chicken, all with the serene composure of a Zen master. But that was before the lettuce.

It was a Tuesday, the kind of Tuesday that felt like a Monday's grumpy older brother. A new shipment of produce had just arrived, and Chuck, ever the diligent leader, was overseeing its transfer to the display cases. That's when he saw it. The lettuce.

Now, to the untrained eye, it looked like perfectly ordinary romaine. A little damp, perhaps, but otherwise unremarkable. To Chuck, however, it was a verdant abomination.

"No, no, NO!" he bellowed, startling a nearby stock boy who dropped a crate of organic kale with a crash. Chuck swooped in, his eyes narrowed, his usually neat hair already developing a distinct wildness. "Look at this! Just look at it!" He held up a limp, slightly bruised head of lettuce as if it were a venomous snake. "This isn't romaine! This is… this is sad romaine! It's been through things! Bad things!"

The produce manager, a stoic woman named Brenda who'd seen Chuck through many a minor meltdown, sighed. "It's just a bit wilted, Chuck. We can mist it."

"Mist it?!" Chuck's voice ascended to a pitch usually reserved for distressed poodles. "Brenda, misting this lettuce would be like putting a tiny Band-Aid on a broken heart! It needs therapy! It needs a sabbatical! It needs… hope!"

He began pacing the produce aisle, his arms flailing. "Our customers, Brenda, they deserve the crispest, the most vibrant, the most joyful lettuce! This… this barely has the will to live! Imagine a family dinner, Brenda! The salad, limp and defeated! The children, weeping at the table, their tiny faces etched with the agony of flaccid greens!"

A few customers, initially drawn by the commotion, were now slowly backing away, clutching their reusable shopping bags a little tighter. One elderly woman cautiously placed a perfectly fine head of iceberg back on the shelf.

Chuck, oblivious to his growing audience, was now addressing the lettuce directly. "What happened to you, little leaves? Was it a long journey? Did you miss your family? We're here for you! We're the Summerside Superstore, and we believe in second chances! Especially for leafy greens!"

He then grabbed a water spray bottle and, instead of misting the lettuce, began spritzing it with an intensity usually reserved for extinguishing small fires. "Hydrate! Rejuvenate! Embrace your destiny as a delicious salad component!"

Brenda finally intervened, gently prying the spray bottle from his grasp. "Chuck, you're scaring the zucchini. And you're soaking the floor."

Chuck deflated slightly, his shoulders slumping. "But Brenda, the lettuce!" He gestured dramatically at the sad-looking batch, now glistening with Chuck's impassioned hydration efforts. "It just doesn't have that… that zing! That je ne sais quoi of a truly confident leaf!"

Later that day, after Chuck had been coaxed into the back office with a strong cup of tea and a promise of extra-crisp potato chips, Brenda managed to sell off the "traumatized" lettuce at a slight discount. Most customers didn't even notice. But for Chuck Burke, the assistant manager, the Great Lettuce Crisis of August 24th, 2024 (or whenever it happened), remained a vivid, almost mythical, blot on his otherwise pristine record of unflappable calm. And from that day forward, every time he walked past the produce section, he'd eye the romaine with a lingering, almost sympathetic, gaze, silently willing it to be its best, most joyful self.

Do you think Chuck will ever truly recover from the trauma of the wilted lettuce, or will every head of romaine now be a potential emotional minefield?