I do believe one of my middle school torturers was in line ahead of me at the grocery store today.
Let me explain why this might be so:
The express lane is made for people who can get through the check out line quickly. It is for people who have a few things, maybe an apple or an orange, but almost entirely made up of items that have scan tags on them.
I had one thing. It had a UPC symbol on it. I was right on target. The guy behind me had only chocolate milk. But the woman in front of me! Well!
People who eat a lot of fresh greens are hereby banned from using the express lane. When you buy green leaf lettuce, Boston lettuce, parsley, green grapes, red peppers, and apples, you should consider using the normal lane. It was lunch time. People were in a hurry. I wasn't in love with pokey people, and I wanted to put my stuff down!
The cashier had rung up all this stuff after having to search through the laminated book for the price code or peer through the plastic bag to find out what the hell was in the damn bag. I suppose it didn't take that long, but come on, sister, get with it. Pick veggies with their code stuck to them. Or eat meat. There are stickers on meat.
So I was practicing being all forgiving and sweet when the cashier told her how much she owed. At that point, sweet little lady opens her wallet and pulls out her card. She can't figure out how to use the stupid reader. She has a credit card. She tries like eighty times to slide it, but she hasn't pressed "Credit" yet. Why couldn't she have done debit? Debit is faster. And you don't have to juggle groceries to sign everything. (She goes to Cornell. I'm going to ask them to give a class about this. Cornell people are smart. They'll pick up on this quickly enough.)
I saw her walking back to somewhere, her groceries hidden in her backpack.
I do hope her lunch was good, but maybe she'll learn to stay the hell out of my way when I'm in the mood to be assertive and sit by myself at lunch--if she'll just let me buy my stupid food!
I didn't like her hair, either.
Posted by dotty at April 23, 2004 11:36 PMI think you need to move to the Caribbean.
Posted by: Chicory Spungewit at April 24, 2004 09:20 AM
Debit is only faster when using a PIN. And from what you describe, she might have a difficult time remembering her PIN. Or distinguishing it from one of her other PIN's.
And, for those with paid-in-full credit card balance, credit costs less than debit, strictly speaking.
She still should have turned all of her fruit and vegetable labels upward. Sometimes the lettuce is marked with the code number on the packaging. When it's not, the cashier often charges incorrectly for lettuce, failing to recognize romaine or red leaf/green leaf. or escarole.
Posted by: Evan Hoester at April 24, 2004 05:23 PM