A Daily Dose of Nothing

"Express Yourself". This is what the sign says above 5 of the self check out lines at my local supermarket. The cashier express lines generally have between 5 and 10 people, each with about 10 items. Since each one of them has to dig into their pockets for money, you're usually better off going to a lane with one person who has a cart full of items.

Due to this, I always try to express myself since 90% of the time there is at least one self checkout line open. When I went to checkout yesterday, there was 1 line closed. I had four lines to choose from thinking it wouldn't be too bad.

Well, 1 lane had someone who had never used the express checkout before so they had no clue what they were doing. They couldn't read the screen or listen to the voice as it told you to please place the last scanned item onto the belt. They had scanned a huge bouncing ball which they immediate gave to the child sitting in the red and yellow plastic car / shopping cart. A light started flashing and someone had to come over to straighten it out. They also couldn't find the receipt when they finally finished.

Another lane had a guy who had his shopping cart completely full to the top. He decided he would take his time and very casually find the UPC to scan. At some points he actually stopped to read what was on the label. I stood in line for about 10 minutes and he wasn't even half way done. I wouldn't be surprised if he was still there.

The third lane had a family who decided cooperation was there best bet to get out of the store quickly. The father took items from the cart. He then handed them to his daughter to scan. As they rolled down the conveyer belt, Mom was at the other end to bag them. While they all got to express themselves in their own unique way, it didn't help me get out of there.

The final line had someone scanning as well as a few people waiting, so I skipped that one.

I finally decided on the first line with the virgin scanners. I figured since they've never done it before, the next time they did they would be a little more experienced and things would flow more smoothly.

I could probably avoid all this by getting up a few hours earlier on Sundays, but who wants to do that.