Random Bits

Grocery shopping tonight turned out to be an experience (of course I would forget to get the ONE item I absolutely positively NEEDED, but I digress). My supermarket has self checkout. More then that it has scan-as-you-go shopping. When you are a scan-as-you-go shopper, you can check out at the self checkout and just scan your store card and it pulls up your already scanned order and you pay, and are out the door really really quickly.

So I did my shopping and got to the bottom of my list (I didn't realize I forgot that ONE IMPORTANT ITEM until I got home. Bygones.). I got in line for the self checkout as normal. Only two self checkout lanes were open, one with three guys in line, one with a couple of girls checking out and one other guy also in line with a very small cart of stuff (he had maybe six items in his cart. Maybe.).

I got in line behind him. The girls are about seventeen, obviously new to the whole checkout thing, but I am okay to wait - holidays y'know. The other lines had more people. The girls are having trouble with the concept of weighing their produce on the scale - they kept taking it off the scale before it was completely finished and erroring the system. Which called the guy who handles all the self checkout lanes over to void and re-ring. The girls were obviously getting things Mom (and/or Dad - whoever the adult is who cooks and shops) had forgotten (I don't know two teenage girls who would get three large bunches of asparagus).

Finally the young man who worked there came and rang in the last of their cart, and left them to pay (via credit card). One girl finished bagging while the other was trying to navigate the payment process. It told her to sign the signature pad next to the scanner. She couldn't figure out where the "pen" to sign was. She got that point, and then tried signing the wrong signature pad. She got more and more upset until I realized she wasn't following the directions and didn't know what to do.

Then I found myself saying something I've never even heard my mother say. I ducked around the guy in front of me and said "here, honey, sign right there and press done" pointing at the signature pad that is right under her hand (in her defense she was faced with three different electronic pads and the signature one is the smallest and least obvious).

I called her "honey" wtf? When did I get all maternal and shit? That is just Not Right.

The guy and I exchange good-natured eyerolls as if to say kids! as the girls leave giggling. He checks out in good time (he had about five or six bags of bread rolls and that was it), and then so do I. All I had to do was scan my store card and pay - so even with groceries for the next week it took about three minutes for me to check out.

Of course I would pick the shortest line that took the most time. I seem to have a knack for it. Oy!