Supermarket Lines

I went to the supermarket to buy my usual for lunch. A few cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and such for my salad. We have two supermarkets and a spiffy new natural food store all within a few meters of work. I select my veggies in the veggie section, walk over to the bread section and buy two whole wheat rolls for Tal (its all she eats anyway) and go to the check-out lines.

As usual in these supermarkets all the the cashiers are busy, so I select to shortest line. I never go to the express lane because the cashier there sports a scowl that will cause my carrots to rot. Not that any of the cashiers are pictures of happiness. Most of them look like their on the job training was saying "neut" to shoppers in the bread line in Vladivostok. Anyway, we are not talking about cashiers today. So I patiently wait my turn, meditating on whether to first glue the finger braces before the X-brace, when I am jarred out of my reverie by a flash of sheer annoyance. The woman at the front of the line, having had all her goods swiped, and being presented with a total is only now fishing around in her bag for her chequebook. After much blind grouping she finally comes up with a beaten purse. She then painstakingly writes out the total and the supermarket name, asks for the total again, signs her name and finally hands over the scrap of paper. The next woman in line, when presented with her total, spends a good three minutes searching for her credit card, spends thirty seconds deciding she wants three payments and ignores the cashier when asked to sign because she is busy bagging her groceries. You get the message here.

Why is it that paying at the grocery store always comes as a surprise to these people. Surely after 50 years of doing this, they get the idea. You take your goods to the cashier, she figures out how much it will all cost and you pay. Get the damm cheque ready, take out your credit card while she is working, find your purse in the black hole of your bag, its is almost certain that you WILL have to pay -- so stop making me wait. This "gosh... I have to pay now" realization is nauseating for the rest of us in the line.