More of Life’s Amazing Rules!

There are several rules that life teaches us over the course of time that should never be ignored. For example, don’t drink and drive, don’t wash whites and colors together, and don’t leave the toilet seat up. Today, I am adding another rule to the list: don’t use the express checkout lane in the grocery store.

The Express Checkout is a devious ploy, instituted by management, to lull the unsuspecting customer into believing that fast service is really possible. It may work if there is no one in the line ahead of you, but if there are one or two people ahead of you – go to the new cashier-in-training line. I believe the “X” in “express” is a clue that we have ignored for too long. Generally, an “X” in this situation indicates that the intelligence of the clerk is an unknown, or her signature since she can not write her own name or symbolic for the location of a lost treasure- her brain

Today I only had three items and foolishly thought that the two people ahead of me would proceed very quickly through the line with their two or three items. Wrong!

The first lady bought two bananas and a beef roast. Her bill was $9.11, which should have tipped me off to the impending disaster. She asked the checkout cherub if she may have made a mistake as she thought the roast cost under five dollars. The clerk informed her that the roasts on sale were in the next bin to the one from which she had selected her roast. The disgruntled lady said she would exchange it and ambled at the speed of a three-legged cat slowly to the far back reaches of the store. During the TEN minutes she was selecting a new roast, the clerk said she could not help the next customer because she had already ‘punched in the bananas’. Such mega financial transactions are not to be trifled with.

The second lady was eventually served while I slowly smoldered and cursed my stupidity at being seduced by the “ less than ten items” sign above the checkout desk. Finally the customer was told that her purchases totaled $21.94. I could read no ominous circumstances into her number and was starting to relax. Until she took out her checkbook!

How many people still pay for groceries with a check? Probably only one, and she stood between me and my escape. Of course, she was very careful in filling out the check and passing a parcel of ID to the cherub. The clerk- with-no-name held the check up to the light as though she were a member of the World Bank counterfeit squad and appeared to give it her nod of approval. But a cherubic nod would not suffice. She needed an initial from her supervisor as the amount exceeded her five-dollar check approval limit.

The supervisor, as you might suspect, was not without some basic management skills. She fully realized that if she were visible or accessible, she would be bothered continually by her stable of protégés for just such time consuming actions as initializing checks. She was eventually located, I believe at the Starbucks nearby, and returned to her post to carefully determine the $21.94 check was indeed good. Her secret method of making this determination, with just the naked eye, is one of the skills that separated her from the cherubic clerk and elevated her to management status.

Needless to say, it took over twenty minutes to finally proceed through the EXPRESS lane and exit the store. I am a sadder but wiser man and am more than pleased to share this life lesson with you. Don’t use the Express Checkout EVER!