Alan versus Retail, the struggle continues.

It was said of the Divine Leila that her gullet was never darkened by a kibble.

So I check out at Petco with my two 33-pound bags of Solid Gold dry food -- she's particularly partial to "Barking at the Moon," but then aren't we all? -- and I take the receipt.

"Thank you," I mutter.

"No problem," replies the sales assistant.

No problem? Whatever happened to "you're welcome"? I may have disturbed your texting about the secret sex life of gerbils and insisted you drag yourself halfway across the store to open one of the deserted cash registers, just so I could selfishly, oh, leave sometime before midnight, but seeing as I've just ratcheted up the equivalent of the Gross National Product of Benin, you bet it's no effing problem.

Since when did doing your job become doing the customer a favor? I'm not begging for a "Oh no, thank you, guv'nor, and that's a very nice jacket, if I may so so, Milord, how much did that cost, eh?" -- if I want that, I could go to the Bloomingdale's menswear department -- but a simple grunt would do.

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And call me old-fashioned, but I do think it's up to the management to make sure a new employee knows the word "butter" before he's put on the counter of a bagel store.