I do everything right when choosing a checkout line. I try to avoid the slow checkers. I look to see how many people are in the line and how many of them have overflowing carts full of stuff. I look for baby strollers, loose toddlers, families huddling together, and demented looking old ladies. After some mental calculations, I choose the line that looks the most promising.
So why do I always end up in the slowest line within a ten-mile radius?
I have a reverse psychic ability that sends me automatically to the one line containing some moron who will tie up the process indefinitely. More often than not, this is someone not far ahead of me.
Picture this. We are in the local Walgreens. It is crowded and noisy. People are squeezing past each other and swerving to avoid collisions. There are two cash registers open, and two long lines have formed. I have two deodorants and one tube of toothpaste, which should take me only about twenty seconds to pay for once I get to the head of the line. I perform my quick analysis, and choose the one on the left. Everything is going well, and I am as happy as anyone can be who is temporarily stalled in the Black Hole of Calcutta, when the cashier begins to ring up the items of the woman just ahead of me. Here is where things take a sudden turn for the maddening.
She is a white-haired woman of indeterminate age, somewhere between 70 and death. She looks like Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz and talks like a Mafia wife. She doesn’t have all that many items, but, as I will soon learn, that doesn’t matter.
The first sign of trouble comes with the first item the cashier rings up — a bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion.
WOMAN: Isn’t that lotion on sale?
CASHIER: No.
WOMAN: But there’s a sign that says it’s on sale.
CASHIER: Only the small size is on sale. This size is regular price.
WOMAN: The sign didn’t say anything about sizes. That’s false advertising.
The woman and the cashier argue back and forth for about five minutes, while I roll my eyes and shake my head. I have no inkling of the torture yet to come, though, so I patiently stay in my place. Finally, the woman tells the cashier she doesn’t want the lotion, he voids the transaction and rings up her next item, a bottle of Tylenol.
WOMAN: Oh, wait! I have a coupon.
She opens her purse and begins to rummage around in it, looking for the tiny piece of paper. She takes each item from her purse, one at a time, but she can’t find the coupon. I stand behind her holding my two deodorants and one tube of toothpaste, and begin to whimper softly. She finally thinks to look in her wallet, and finds the damned coupon, right where she had probably put it so that she wouldn’t have to look for it. The cashier scans it, and she quickly shoves her stuff back into her purse. She drops her comb, and I bend over, pick it up and give it to her.
WOMAN: Thanks.
ME: You’re welcome. (Now kindly take it and shove it up your rear, teeth and all.)
The cashier scans her next two items with no interruption, and I begin to be lulled into a false sense of tranquility, even though my hands have begun to shake and little red laser beams of anger are shooting out of my eyes.
This growing sense of peace is shattered when the cashier picks up the woman’s last item, a bottle of Softsoap Body Wash.
CASHIER: You know, these are on sale, buy two get one free.
WOMAN: Wait here for me. I’m going to go get two more.
Something snaps inside me. I grab the woman by the lapels of her coat and bring her face up really close to mine.
ME: Listen, You, and listen good! You are going to buy one bottle of that stuff and one alone, then you are going to leave this store and not come back for the rest of your life! You’d better listen to me, too. I took a judo class at the YWCA, and these hands have been registered by the State of New York as lethal weapons! And I’ll be watching you from now on, when you least suspect it!
I hold on to the woman’s coat and shoot my little eye laser beams over to the cashier.
ME AGAIN: And you! Keep your mouth shut! You give her one more idea, and you’ll get a dose of the same thing, whatever that is!
I let go of the woman’s coat lapels. She quickly and silently pays for her things, and almost runs out of the store. I put my three measly items on the counter and the cashier begins to ring them up. He doesn’t dare look at me, but he is biting his lips to keep from laughing.
I hear a noise. I turn around, and everyone in both lines is applauding me. Even the people way over in the Photo Department are applauding. So is the other cashier.
I take a bow, pay for my purchases and leave.
I actually did snap at a woman once. She was taking so long. She made the cashier look up each item after she scanned it and then she made her read the directions on how to use one product and then she bitched because she thought the cashier ripped her off by two cents. I let her have it and the people in the next line did applaud. Everyone had stopped to gawk at this woman and her rudeness. I just had to do something. LOL
Ay ay ay! Slow lines are usually caused by customers, not by cashiers. I’ll bet those same people who hold up a line forever get very impatient when others hold THEM up.