SHUT UPPP

So I'm standing in line at Best Buy, buying birthday presents for my mom ("Snakes on a Plane" was on sale! Um and also season 1 of 30 Rock because I'm the best daughter) and because Mom happens to have been born between Thanksgiving and Christmas there were a bajillion people doing their shopping. So I wander over to the long checkout line where they only have two cash registers open and am waiting, as I do. Then, in accordance with my luck in checkout lines, the people in front of me start having all kinds of problems. An elderly lady was having a hard time remembering how to write a check at one register and at the other the cashier just kept on pushing a bunch of buttons and finally stepped back from the machine and goes "It locked me out." at which point I laughed hysterically because CASH REGISTER FTW! Anyway, then they decided to open up a third register. Great! At this point I was about third in line. The cashier at the newly-opened register called for the next person in line, so the first guy wandered over there and then: LINE CUTTER!!! The new register they opened happened to be behind the start of the checkout line, and the lady BEHIND me and another person decided it would be socially appropriate to hop out of line and just go stand behind the person getting checked out at the newly opened register. WTF?! Annoying! I mean, the two other open registers weren't doing a whole lot to get the line moving so her rushing over to the third one was pretty much like saying "SEE YOU LATER, SUCKAS!" to those of us who frown upon cutting in line. Plus she had her kid with her. Great parenting (DRINK)! In case my explanation wasn't clear, here's a visual:



Have a nice, line-cutting-free day!

Last Sunday Dale and I wandered over to HEB around 11 in the morning just to pick up a couple of things. When it was time to leave, all of the checkout lanes were understandably full, especially since it was a holiday weekend, so hoping to defy the odds we got into the "20 items or less" (can't type that without wanting to correct it) self-checkout lane. There were three lanes open and all three had people at them so we were next in line. How bad could this be?

OMG OMG OMG. Seriously? So, I don't think any of these people ACTUALLY had fewer than twenty items but that ended up being beside the point, because they're also not at all fit to operate the technology required for self-checkout use. First there was this guy there by himself who had a ton of produce he was trying to ring up. Apparently, he couldn't see the big "PRODUCE" icon there on the screen because he took out his celery (that's what she said?) and was looking for a BARCODE there on the stalks. Ummm...this is not going well. At the next line was more of a classic fail. The lady there had two children who were getting away while she had to take things out of her bags and then replace them, etc. because she couldn't figure out that doing things like touching the bag carousel messes with the scale and will F your stuff up. THEN she takes out her wallet and awesomely begins trying to shove dollars in the dollar slots at the ONE CHECKOUT LINE with a handmade (though still large enough for me to easily see from where I was standing) sign that said: CREDIT CARDS AND CHECKS ONLY - NO CASH BACK. At this point I began giggling gleefully and uncontrollably because it's just so damn funny and also my luck to be behind these jokers.

Maybe the best, though, was the yuppie couple at the third and final checkout lane. I still have no idea what exactly was going on, but at various points they were standing there doing absolutely nothing, then she yelled at him for...something, I don't know, and then they stood there doing nothing some more, then the poor cashier/babysitter came over and tried to help but was kind of chased back to her stand, then the cashier came BACK with a whole thing of coupons but at the same time the wife yelled "JUST HAVE THEM ZERO IT OUT!!" and ran back into the store. What?! It's all so amusing! So by now I'm laughing like an idiot because this is just so funny. I mean, these are exactly the people who used to treat me like crap when I was a cashier at Target in high school and I still see it while I'm waiting in line behind someone - the cashier is so inconsequential to them and it's "not a real job" or whatever and...you know what? It's not so easy, is it, beeyotches? Seriously, between the three of the checkout lines we stood there for a good eight minutes. Not all that bad if you're just in a regular line on a Sunday but to be NEXT IN LINE with three different people standing there utterly confounded and losing it was just hysterical.

Dale has gotten really good at making it look like he's not with me when I make no effort at all to hide when I laugh at the stupid things that total strangers do in public. Poor guy.

OH and for the record the lady with the two runaways and all the cash finally saw the sign, figured it out, and paid with a card. GAH! But at least we got her checkout lane. :-)