At Publix (supermarket) this morning, I went to pick up a couple of foods. They had their usual two lanes open, except it was extra busy and the lines were quite long. I chose the line with the “10 items or less” sign, having only 3 items to purchase at the time. My confidence in getting to work less than half an hour late swelled as the people around me were also interested in purchasing maybe 1 or 6 or 4 items.
Then the line seemed to stall. Craning my neck, I finally saw the problem: a thirty-something goateed guy wearing a jacket had put down cans and cans of garbanzo beans, some cans of something else, along with a few miscellaneous items. There had to be 20 garbanzo bean cans alone, plus the other junk. The cashier glanced at the guy in rebuke, then started scanning items as fast as she could. As she reduced the number of cans on the counter to four, the rest of us started to shift position and grab items in anticipation of crawling the next few steps forward.
But then he started pulling more cans from out of his jacket. Was he kidding? Was he too lazy to go get a cart or basket? We all breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t pay with a check. At least he had the dignity to look a little sheepish.
Learn this: If you have ten cans of something, it counts as ten items. It does not matter that they’re all the same brand, size, and/or flavor.
Wait, wouldn’t putting items in your jacket be rather… stupid? Wouldn’t they think you were shoplifting?
perhaps it’s my great expectations in using the “Express” lane that leads to such feelings of betrayal and letdown, but i always seem to have the expresslane with the problem. the one time, the recipet thingy broke, then there is the price checks, then there is the old lady with the checkbook who decided to take out the book and start writing a check from scratch AFTER all her shit is rung up and bagged, etc etc etc…so, yeah, i feel your pain…
Publix should get those self checkeroutter things. I’m not happy about having a laser pointed at my abdomen, but it’s damn faster than standing in line at walmart waiting on the previous customer’s 1000 tubs of fancy feast to be scanned.
Although this isn’t about an express lane, it’s still about hell while waiting in line…
KMart has a generous return policy, and when a friend of mine needed a TV for a weekend to test cables, they decided to take advantage of it.
The scary part of all of this was going to KMart customer service to return the TV. There was only one person in front of us in line. We didn’t think much about it. We were just curious as to why there were dozens of bottles of bleach everywhere. God, KMart can’t even put away bleach bottles properly?
Then I realized what happened. The man in front of me was buying the bleach. It was on sale and on top of that, he had a coupon. He wanted to get the bleach for sale price and then wanted to use his $10 off $50 coupon.
Unfortunately, he had only reached $49.9x before taxes and was throwing a fit.
Needless to say… we were in line for awhile….
If it weren’t for this experience at KMart, I think I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the hell that Publix line must have been.
Allen 1: It was really strange. I’m starting to wonder whether I saw the whole event correctly.
Chessloser: Sounds like you should always buy at least 11 items so that you’ll have an excuse not to use the express lane.
Annie: You realize I’m databasing all the stuff you fear now…rubber bands, balloons, math, lasers pointed at your stomach…
Allen 2: Your experience was probably worse than mine. For me, at least I knew the line would move eventually and was already psychologically prepared for a wait due to the long line.
You, on the other hand, only had one guy ahead of you and probably thought it couldn’t have taken that long…
Why didn’t the guy just buy one more bottle of bleach, or a stick of gum, or a candy bar? Good grief!
I bought $10 worth of mints once so I could spend $50 and randall’s would give me 10 cents off per gallon of gas.
if you come within a 100 foot radius of me with a rubber band or a polynomial I reserve the right to put your eye out with either a projectile or my own fingers if you’re close enough 😉
Well to his credit, the guy, upon realizing this might take awhile, took a step back and asked for them to handle our return first. Which was fun, I got to joke around with the cashier about the impending fun she’ll have dealing with the Bleach man.