It is not unusual to feel that you always are in the slowest line at the grocery check out or the bank or just about anywhere we are made to line up. We have all felt that way. I’ve even taken to apologizing, sotto voce, to the people behind me when some remarkable delay is occurring at the till one, two or even three people ahead. Sorry, this always happens in the line I stand in.
I know it is magical thinking on my part, thanks to my family OCD. I have even been the cause of the delay on a few occasions, transforming into that lady with a change purse, paying for groceries with pennies. “98 – 99 – 1 dollar…how much is it dear? 3 – 4 – 5 … oh look, gum!…9 – 10…”.
Believe it or not, you don’t even need a change purse to generate a line up all the way back to the bulk food aisle: there’s an app for that. I have a free app on my smart phone that records the UPC codes for all my customer loyalty cards. The cards that are always on the dresser or in another coat when I’m at the store. It keeps the information on the one device I know I’ll take everywhere. Simply select the card on the screen and, with that ‘I’m so tech it hurts’ nonchalance, hand it to the clerk.
Then I remember this is not the one out of five retailers with a scanner that can read it. So the cashier has to enter the number manually. Except for either the last number or last two numbers or, sometimes, the first two numbers. It takes a few tries to figure it all out. And even when I say, oh never mind. the clerk has reached the level of blind flop sweat drive to prove human superiority over mere mindless technology.
From app to epic in 30 seconds or less.
Lately, however, I have found myself standing in line behind some award winning creative cashier monopolizing. I’m not talking the everyday obscure cigarette package dance – don’t you have the one in the blue package? Not that blue, it’s more purplish…or was it green…oh, never mind, I’ll take that first one. No, I think you got it from the other till…”
I’m talking a buggy load of obscure gourmet barbecue sauce and wad of coupons clutched in the fist of a glassy eyed coupon savant squeaking with joy because the sale price and fine print balance perfectly. Except the number of coupons, once peeled apart, flattened and counted don’t tally with the bottles individually counted, then scanned then counted again. Twice. At the sound of torches being lit and pitchforks sharpened, paying the damn three dollar difference became a pretty good deal, all things considered.
I’m talking a whole new class entirely, a star-ship battle cruiser class of line hog.
Like a quick pop into the drug store because I needed batteries for my Mp3 recorder and this was on the way there. As I rounded the corner and headed for the till all was quiet. Just one woman there and, 5 minutes later, she was still there. Leaning on the counter, discussing the merits of every damn scratch and win ticket in the display tray. Picking each one up, reading the back, putting one aside then moving on the next.
Of course at this point another till should, logically, be opened but, apparently, there were no other persons qualified to operate a cash register. Untrained in the keen skill set required to locate the UPC code and then, this is the really tricky part, wave it in the general direction of a laser scanner.
And I had to have those batteries.
Two days later, I went into a electronics store to exchange defunct earbuds, still under warranty. One customer
at the till, another looking at laptops. Woman looking at laptops finally walks out. I pat the dog of woman at the till. The clerk is phoning about something. Then he is looks on the screen, two finger pecking a translation into the required Elvish. Then he phones again about something else. When that is done woman in chair points to objects hanging behind the clerk. Flash drives and memory chips for the camera she is buying. And, I learned later, had been buying for the previous 20 minutes.
I went to get some groceries. Used the self-check-out where I was trusted to scan a milk carton and look up the code for a bag of cherries. Not as quickly as the trained professionals, I will admit, but with no loss of life or endangerment of innocent bystanders.
When I returned to the geek supply house progress had been made. He was actually putting the camera into a bag and had to phone only two more times in regard to her account with the store.
Imagine my surprise when I learned they no longer stock my headphones at this store and he wouldn’t recommend taking a different brand because, well, it’s nowhere near as good quality. Obvious reason for discontinuing its sale. He suggested going to the store downtown.
Where I learned my warranty had run out. Oddly, that didn’t take any time at all. Can we show you some of the new bluetooth models?
Maybe I’m just becoming more aware of time; it doesn’t come back once it dances past. There is no app for that.
